The Internet is full of English speakers making fun of the name of Crunky. But hardly anyone ever mentions the fact that this is a REALLY GOOD candy bar. This is the new Crunky with even more crunch and it is even more wonderful than before.

I love chocolate bars with crispy rice in them. But since I’ve become a grownup chocolate snob – er, I mean, “connoisseur” – something like a Nestle’s Crunch doesn’t satisfy me. I have been trying other brands of crisp rice bars for years. For a while I settled down with the Newman’s Own version, but somehow, the love wore off. So for a long time, I was bereft of this category of candy in my life – till I found Crunky.

There actually isn’t any rice in Crunky. There’s something called “malt puff.” Reading this on the label for the first time was actually one of those moments of culinary enlightenment – I realized that my love for crispy rice was actually part of my love for the combination of chocolate and malt. That’s the important thing about the flavor of those crispy rice bars. That’s why it doesn’t matter that there’s no rice in Crunky.

Aside from that insight, you might be kind of better off not reading the ingredients list of this, if you get a version sold in the US with the translated label stuck on. There are various things that don’t seem to belong in a chocolate bar. But I don’t care. I like the chocolate in this bar better than most Japanese chocolate, and I love the flavor of the crunch, which is much more intense than crispy rice. The texture’s also a little different, in smaller, not quite so airy pieces – definitely more of a party in my mouth.

CRUNKY. Why does everyone make fun of your name? It’s perfectly lovely to me. I guess this is why they say beauty is in the eye – or the mouth – of the beholder.

Buy Crunky Online:

• at Jlist.com