A recent Saturday afternoon found me cruising the aisles at a large downtown Chinese market that I’d somehow never been to in all my years of living in this town. Naturally, I made a beeline for the candy section. All the usual suspects were there – Kasugai and Lotte gummies, White Rabbits, and a few other things I’d never seen before.
“Ooh, a new flavor of Pocky,†I said to myself. No, not out loud, in my head – what, do you think I wanted all the other shoppers to think I was crazy? “The box is kind of pretty. Wait, what the… Brazilian Pudding? What in the blue blazes is Brazilian Pudding?†The only things I could name that came from Brazil were Brazil nuts, jaguars and Brazilian waxing (and we are so not going to go there on a family website). None of those things had anything to do with pudding or Japanese chocolate-coated pretzel sticks.
My curiosity had to be satisfied, so I picked up a box. After all, there was a toucan on the front, and I’ve never been steered wrong by a product with a toucan on the box. (OK, the only food product I know of with a toucan for a mascot is Froot Loops, but I’ve never had a bad bowl of Sam’s finest.)
When I got home, a judicious Googling informed me that Brazilian pudding (otherwise known as pudim de leite) is a crème caramel-like dessert made from eggs and condensed milk and topped with caramel. Unlike crème caramel, it’s usually made in a ring-shaped mold. It sounded like mighty tasty stuff, but how would its Pocky counterpart compare?
I opened the box. It contained two plastic pouches, each containing about 10 pieces. The coating on the pretzel rods was a pale cream color, and it looked a little thinner than I remember from other flavors (those little brown markings on the pretzels can be seen through the coating). Each stick was decorated with stripes of darker chocolate (or a reasonable facsimile).
They had a nice creamy/burnt sugar smell. They tasted milky and sweet, like condensed milk, with a pleasant undertone of caramel. The crisp, buttery pretzel went well with the creamy sweetness of the coating. Due to the thinness of the coating layer, the pretzel flavor was actually stronger than the pudding flavor, but that didn’t make them any less tasty.
So if you’re looking for a pudim de leite fix (and who isn’t!) but don’t want to fly all the way to Brazil, check out the Pocky version instead. They’re Toucan-O-Licious!™
Buy Pocky Online:
- at Jbox.com
- at Amazon.com
Thanks for reviewing these. I see them all the time and really had no idea what they were. So I see they are pretzel like sticks with a dipping pouch. huh. interesting.
September 7th, 2008 at 9:33 pmSomeone needs to review Pocky’s “Men’s Bitter Chocolate.” It really exists.
September 7th, 2008 at 10:38 pmMatt – They’re more like chocolate-covered pretzels, minus the salt. You really should give them a try – they come in so many different flavours that you’re bound to find one you’ll like.
September 8th, 2008 at 11:11 amHuh, that’s kind of neat. I’ve never seen this flavor of Pocky, but I’ve tried just about every other kind. There’s a huge Japanese population in Brazil, but I was never really sure of how much Brazilian culture wiggled its way to Japan.
On that note, I must remember to get my brother to buy me a huge stash of hard to find Japanese candies while he’s over there.
September 15th, 2008 at 1:40 amHi. I saw your posting about pocky and figured you’d be interested in this offer. Until October 8th. 2008 you can get 15% off at http://www.asianfoodgrocer.com with “15%4U” coupon code. They have a ton of pocky and great selection. If you ever want to buy pocky from them and write a review of their stuff I’m sure they’d appreciate it. Maybe they’ll send you a freebie. I know they read your site. I sure do. I’m a friend of one of the guys that works there, so its a little helpful promo. Keep up the good work here though.
September 29th, 2008 at 3:03 pmI recently tried this at an anime convention. It was so good! Along with orange, blueberry, men’s (which I still don’t understand), mint, and caramel/almond/chocolate.
:3 I love anime conventions.
December 15th, 2008 at 10:06 pmI absolutly LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Pocky!!!!!! They are my absolute FAVORITE!! But my asian food store doesn’t have much variety. All they have is the Chocolate version in various sizes. I love Pocky so much so can nyone point me to a site with alot of flavors of it? Thanks ^_^
October 24th, 2009 at 11:59 am