Monthly Archives: January 2007

Candy Review:Meiji Best 3 Chocolate Bars

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Meiji Best 3

Chocolate is well loved and heartily consumed in Japan, and Meiji is probably the top-selling chocolate brand. According to Mari on the Japanese lifestyle blog Watashi to Tokyo, Meiji manufactures six of the top ten best-selling chocolate bars in Japan (data from Nikkei). The number one spot went to Meiji Milk Chocolate, and Meiji’s Black Chocolate and Hi Milk Chocolate came in fourth and eighth, respectively. These are the three flavors included in the Meiji Best 3 variety pack I picked up at a local Asian market.

Now, while I love Japanese chocolate bars, I also don’t think it is of very high quality. It has a distinct flavor, and it seems to have a lot of fillers. Japanese chocolate is just not, well, very chocolatey. The flavor generally is much more subtle. I found this to be the case with the Meiji Best 3. All three of the bars were on the hard, snappy side (as opposed to, say, Hershey’s Chocolate Bars, which I believe is the U.S. equivalent to the Meiji bars and which are a rather soft chocolate). One thing that struck me was how different the three bars tasted. Here’s the individual breakdown:

Hi Milk Chocolate: This is the milkiest of the bunch (hence the name Hi Milk, I suppose!). It is a little bit creamier than the other bars but has a bit of a powdered milk flavoring. There is a slight fruit undertone, but it isn’t overwhelming or annoying (I am not a huge fan of fruity chocolates).

Milk Chocolate: The number one chocolate slab in Japan, according to Nikkei. Personally, I prefer the Hi Milk Chocolate. I think it has a little more chocolate flavor than the Milk Chocolate. The Milk Chocolate has a very slight tang to it. It’s an unassuming bar.

Black Chocolate: Let’s just say this is dark chocolate for wimps (and I count myself among the wimps. I really prefer milk chocolate to dark chocolate). The undercurrent of cocoa makes the bar a little earthier than the Hi Milk or the Milk, but the flavor is still not particularly strong or overwhelming. The Black certainly doesn’t taste like a serious dark chocolate bar.

Meiji Best 3 mini bars

All in all, I think these bars are just okay. I don’t think I would buy these again, but I would probably buy a large, regular-sized bar of these just to compare them with the mini slabs I purchased.

Buy Meiji candy online:

candy, sweets, chocolate, Japanese, Japan

Catch a Candy Virus

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Candy Viruses

Have you caught this season’s winter cold yet? Personally, I’m working on my second, but if you’re feeling short on viruses, you can order a flavored batch of Candy Virus. The boxes come in three varieties—The Cure (grape); The Epidemic (apple); and The Virus (strawberry). All three are advertised as “tangy pebbles” and come in clever shapes like skulls, a cartoon virus character, and stuff that looks like it would be found on the microscope slide of a very ill person.

I’m not grossed out by Candy Virus, but I am intrigued as to what made someone decide to manufacture such a product. Then again, when you compare the viruses to our Top 10 Grossest Candies, those little boxes of sickness seem light-hearted and even pleasant.

Buy Candy Virus online at:

candy, sweets, grape, apple, strawberry, virus, viruses, gross, sick, novelty

Candy Review: Whole Foods: “Whole Treat” Pates de Fruits

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Whole Foods Whole Treat Fruit Pate

One of the lucky Christmas candy gifts bestowed upon me (they know me too well!) was a beautiful box of fruit pate from Whole Foods. I’ve never had fruit pate/jellies before, but I have eyed them many times before on the shelf at the local gourmet store.

Fruit pate are of French origin (hence the name, which means “jelly”) and are made of real fruit which are then lightly dusted with cane sugar. Essentially a nice simple candy that combines two great ingredients and is just bursting with flavor.

This set of pate comes in 6 flavors: black currant, mandarin, apple, quince, passion fruit and raspberry. I had a hard time deciding which to try first but I finally decided on the black currant and mandarin. I was rewarded with an explosion of flavor in my mouth. Wow. It may sound crazy, but these little sugar coated gems are so flavorful that they rival the fruit they’re made from! Texture and shape aside, I was really eating a bushel of mandarin oranges. My second bite was just as amazing as the first. Next thing I know I had devoured the first tier of the pate (as in one of each flavor). They were all so delicious! Each were really the next best thing to eating a real fruit (or maybe not….).

Whole Foods Whole Treat Fruit Pate Detail

The texture compliments the candy so well. The jelly is firm yet yielded nicely to my teeth, while the sugar coating gives a nice extra touch of sweetness. With each flavor I tried I found a new favorite. They’re all that good! I’d highly recommend these to everyone, especially lovers of fruit flavored candy.

Editor’s note: These look and sound very similar to Cactus Candy – minus the Cactus.

candy, sweets, fruit, pate, gems, jelly, gummi

Super Sweet Refund Video

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I actually stumbled upon this accidentally on YouTube tonight and it was on the front page. Evidently TaxCut software is having a video contest called “Me and My Super Sweet Refund Video Contest” and the example video is the one you see above. It’s a hilarious homemade video about what a Candy Addict would do with a “Super Sweet Refund”. Another funny candy video I found too – a funny Tic Tac video that makes me wish I knew French.

candy, sweets, video, videos, contest, contests, funny

Pop Rocks Partners with American Idol

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Pop Rocks

The sixth season of Fox’s popular reality series American Idol is under way, and Pop Rocks is coming along for the ride. Pop Rocks is launching a new song contest: I Want to be a Pop Rocks Star. Kids enter by writing a song about their favorite crackling, popping candy and must send it in along with two proofs of purchase. Apparently, winners will be chosen at random from the pool of all entries, and details about prizes are still sketchy so early into the year.

If you know a young person who’s brimming with musical pride over carbonated candy, tell them to keep an eye out for this contest. Who knows? Maybe they’ll end up as Pop Rocks’ own American Idol, hopefully without having to hear any dream-crushing insults from Simon Cowell.

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