Review: OyatsuBox Japanese Subscription Box!

It seems like it's been ages since I last featured any Japanese snacks so I was delighted to receive the latest Japanese subscription box from OyatsuBox. I previously featured an OyatsuBox review in March last year which was filled with a selection of awesome Japanese products from iconic brands, such as Kit Kat, Pocky and Hi-Chew.

OyatsuBox Subscription details:

OyatsuBox is a monthly subscription service, which posts direct from Japan, and costs $25.00 (around £16.45) per month with no extra delivery charges. There is no fixed contract and the subscription can be cancelled at any time. Each box is packed full of the latest Japanese snacks, candy, and exclusive items. Every OyatsuBox also includes a Japanese Capsule Toy! For more info: www.oyatsubox.com. 

Here's a quick look at what I received in this months OyatsuBox:

Takoyaki Tei: Made in Japan by FritoLay, this Takoyaki Tei is a large bag of soft fluffy puffs of corn with a classic Japanese flavour. "Takoyaki" are actually little balls of fried squid and batter topped with a traditional takoyaki sauce. I loved the flavour of these round ball shaped snacks, they have a delicious sweet and tangy taste.

Puccho - Kumamoto Strawberry: I'm already a fan of Puccho, which are deliciously chewy and fruity sweets, so I was delighted to find this large pack of Kumamoto Strawberry in the OyatsuBox. This is a special edition, made using strawberries from the Kumamoto Prefecture and features their super cute mascot Kumamon.

There are two different Puccho flavours in each pack; Creamy Milk Strawberry and Fresh Strawberry. Both are quite similar but they are utterly delicious and addictive. It's impossible to have just one! Each sweet has a unique chewy texture with a lovely creamy and sweet fruity flavour.

Kanro Parikore Gummy- Peach & Grape: The name "Parikore" comes from the sound made when biting into these unique gummies - they have a crunchy outer layer covering a soft and chewy middle. I've never tried this brand before so I'm looking forward to reviewing this bag of mixed Peach & Grape flavoured candies.

Pocky Midi Strawberry: Oh my, I was so delighted to see these in the OyatsuBox. I'm already a Pocky fan, but these Pocky Midi Strawberry are really special.

Inside the box there are three individually sealed bags of Pocky, each with four midi sized sticks. Pocky Midi are slightly smaller than regular Pocky sticks but are covered with over twice the amount of chocolate. In this case the covering is a deliciously sweet, and fresh tasting, strawberry flavoured chocolate. I think these are now my favourite Pocky of all time - they're so delicious!

HanaKappa DIY Jelly: Many of the online Japanese candy stores, such as OyatsuCafe, stock these types of DIY candy kits, and this is certainly an interesting one. It lets you make your own bubbly, foamy jelly snack. HanaKappa is described as "a Japanese river creature with a flower growing on his head". My kids are very excited about giving this unique kit a try!

Morinaga Ramune Soda Candies: The packaging of these candies is so cute - it's made to look like a traditional Japanese soda bottle. Inside it's filled with ramune soda (basically lemonade) flavoured candies that are a bit chalky in texture but are surprisingly melt-in-the-mouth and tasty.

Morinaga Hi-Chew Mini: I'm also a fan of Hi-Chew sweets, and I always look out for new ones when I visit Japanese grocery shops. My favourites are the Mango or Peach Hi-Chew. I'm looking forward to trying out this handy pack of Mini  Hi-Chew which contains four flavours; Strawberry, Apple, Grape, and Lemon.

Tohato Chocobi: I've previously reviewed Tohato Caramel Corn, sweet puffed corn snacks, and I've always wanted to try their star shaped version. They're a bit like eating a cereal as a snack. This Tohato Chocobi box contains chocolate flavoured star shaped corn snacks. The box reminds me a little bit of the white chocolate Pokemon version from the OyatsuBox I received last year. 

Don-Koeda Chocolate: Probably the only chocolate bar I've ever seen that has a picture of a cigar smoking character on the front! Apparently this figure is a well known Japanese fashion celebrity - Don-Konishi. The chocolate itself is made by Morinaga and is filled with the crunchy combination of chocolate biscuits, rice puffs and almonds.

Giant Caplico - Chocolate Bomber: It was quite hard to take a photo which adequately captures this one, as it's actually a large ice cream cone shaped snack. It's described as a wafer filled with a delicate and fluffy chocolate. This limited edition "Chocolate Bomber" version is made of two layers of white and milk chocolate, topped with a covering of dark chocolate. It sounds awesome! The packaging is covered with characters from YouKai watch, a popular Anime series.

Gashapon - Japanese Capsule Toy: Finally the capsule toy included in the OyatsuBox. I was surprised by just how large this Japanese capsule toy is - especially compared to the flimsy toys we get in UK capsule machines. Inside I found a very solid and well made (and big!) keyring featuring a character from Naruto.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this vibrant and colourful selection of Japanese snacks and candies - it would certainly make a very special present to brighten up someones day! I was especially delighted with the Pocky Midi Strawberry, Takoyaki Tei, Hi-Chew Mini, and Puccho Kumamoto Strawberry, aswell as discovering many brands that are new to me. 

What do you think of the OyatsuBox selection? If you're a subscriber then I'd love to know of it in the comments below.

For more details:

OyatsuBox website: www.oyatsubox.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/OyatsuCafe

Twitter: https://twitter.com/oyatsucafe

PR Samples.

Hyper Japan 2014 & my mini haul!

This weekend I visited Hyper Japan for the second year in a row. I had a great time last year with my eldest son and this time my youngest wanted to come along too. Once again the Tofu Cute store (above) was one of the highlights for me, but we also enjoyed meeting the various characters around the event (Mario & Luigi for example), and trying out Shaved Ice for the first time!

Lots of Hello Kitty cuteness to be found - I was good and resisted buying anything Hello Kitty related.

There's always so much adorable stationary, including a vast array of stickers.

I'm not sure what the fascination is with poop shaped stationary though! There were poo erasers, sharpeners, pens, in lots of pastel colours...

My boys are both big Nintendo fans so unsurprisingly we spent a lot of time in the large gaming zones. They even got to play a game that was only recently announced for release - Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker. It looked really good. I didn't take too many photos in the gaming area as it was always so busy and very crowded. The nearby Nintendo Store had loads of fun merchandise (above), all quite expensive though.

I wish I could have spent more looking at the beautiful kitchenware, unfortunately this was the closest I got! Maybe next time. 

We tried Shaved Ice for the first time and it was totally delicious and refreshing, perfect on a hot and humid afternoon. The ice is shaved so thin it's melts in the mouth instantly and the added fresh fruit and syrups were gorgeously flavoured. We also ate Chicken Katsu Curry and a chicken noodle dish from one of the food stalls, but I found this type of food to be very over priced and disappointing in taste. I had the same experience last year so maybe I'm just unlucky with the stalls I picked. 

And of course there was lots of cool Japanese candy and chocolate to look at. A new Snoopy Pocky!

I could spend days just looking at this stuff but here's what I bought in the end - my Hyper Japan mini haul:

There was lots of Pocky to choose from but in the end I went for this Berry Carnival flavour as it seemed the most unusual and is certainly one I've never seen before. I could have bought lots of different Kit Kat flavours but after lots of indecision I eventually chose this Raspberry flavour from their "adult sweetness" range. I was also very excited to finally get my hands on the Meiji Rich Banana 70% bar. This is one I've been wanting to try for ages and I can confirm it's extremely tasty!

I couldn't resist picking up a few sweets too. The Puccho Cola and Soda flavours are ones I've tried before but the Puccho Pyramid Blue Soda Candy Balls are new (top of the photo above). They have awesome triangular shaped packaging.

In the end I did buy a little bit of stationery too, there was just so much temptation. The syringe pens are filled with colourful liquid and are very odd I admit, but funny at the same time. I figured I can't have too many notepads and these mushroom ones are just so bright and fun. 

My Hyper Japan round up seems quite shopping obsessed but there were lots of other cool Japanese events that we enjoyed. There were wrestling fights, singers, dancers, karaoke, cosplayers everywhere, kawaii dress up, and lots more :)

Pocky Bear Milk Cocoa Flavour - Warning cuteness alert!

I'm always banging on about how gorgeous Japanese packaging can be, well I think this one has just reached maximum cuteness overload. It's not really because of the bear image on the box but because of the little cardboard flaps on the top and sides which allow you to do this...

Awww c'mon just look at that it's so cute! It's such a simple method too, not rocket science, just little perforated marks in the box so you can fold them back. Why does nothing in the UK even come close to this? Anyway, the cute bear on the front is a character called Kumamon. He's the character mascot for the Kumamoto Prefecture in Japan, basically a mascot generated to encourage tourism to the area and he's become incredibly popular across Japan. The Glico Pocky sticks themselves are a "milk cocoa" flavour.

I really enjoyed the flavour of these. The central biscuit is quite plain at first, but soon melts away to provide a decent hit of chocolate. The outer layer has a lovely creamy chocolate flavour with almost a hint of coffee in there too. These are not as sweetly flavoured as the Cookies & Cream Pocky (review here), the flavours here are more chocolatey rather than sugary. The Pocky Milk Cocoa is so much more than just cute packaging, the delightful flavours all add up to an extremely moreish snack too.  

I bought these from Oyatsu Cafe (and used the Grocery Gems 15% discount code - see HERE for details). www.oyatsucafe.com

Grocery Gems Verdict: Pocky Bear

RATING: 9.5 out of 10.
Buy them again?: Absolutely.
Purchased: Available at Oyatsu Cafe.

Hong Kong Snack Haul!

Mr. Grocery Gems visited Hong Kong a few weeks ago and he somehow managed to bring a huge snack haul home with him. I've obviously trained him well as a snack spotter! Here's a quick round up of some of the products.

These Calbee Potato Grid Crisps have an interesting grid shape and are flavoured with onions, peppers and barbecue chicken.

The Calbee Olive & Garlic Pizza look similar to the Calbee Pizza chips that I reviewed HERE. Unfortunately, this Olive & Garlic variety was very disappointing - inside was a mostly empty packet!

My husband is quite annoyed that he made room in his luggage for a bag that has been pumped full of AIR. What a waste of time!

Potato chips from Nissin with pretty pink blossom packaging and an intriguing flavour too - Sour Plum! I'm not sure if I am brave enough to try them, the last time I tried a Sour Plum flavoured product it did not end well! See my review of the Ume Ninja Meshi HERE (third product down). 

A fab selection of sweets! There are Lemon Hi-Chew, Peach Hi-Chew, some Matcha Milk Candy, Puccho Soda Flavour, and lastly Puccho Miracle (assorted fruit flavour). 

The packaging of the Puccho sweets is so much fun - especially the rainbow bright Puccho Miracle!

Pocky Mango Mousse (I've reviewed these previously HERE), Calbee Jagabee potato snacks and Crunky Crunch Chocolate - the last two have been on my wishlist for some time.

It's quite hard to convey just how adorable this little box of 9 Mix chocolate are. I'll try to take better photos and do a full review soon. Each chocolate is wrapped with a completely different style of packaging, from retro to folksy, and yet the whole thing works together to create a bright appealing look. I can't wait to try these.

Oreo Chocolate Wafers - Strawberry flavour. I've tried a few of these Oreo wafers from China before (see review of the Peanut flavour HERE). I also have a box of Mint flavoured ones I bought from Chinatown recently. Reviews to follow.

I have a slight obsession with maneki-neko (lucky fortune cats) so I was thrilled with this bag of Kikko Lucky Cat Candy mix - hard candies in fruity flavours. The packaging really does make me smile! 

More cuteness in the form of these pastel coloured (and Bunny themed!) Hello Kitty candies. I should have reviewed these for Easter!

These look so cool! These Tada Banana Castella Cakes are bean paste filled banana sponge cakes that are also banana shaped AND even have the word Banana embossed across them. Just in case you didn't get the message. I expect these to be epic!

My husband bought a few products from the Bourbon range of Petit biscuits;  a Matcha Choc Chip and also a savoury Cheese Crackers variety. He said these biscuits were on sale everywhere in Hong Kong, and were available in such an array of different flavours, that curiosity got the better of him. I'm so glad it did as I've always wanted to try these mini biscuits. The Matcha Choc Chip variety are available from Oyatsu Cafe HERE. 

These beautifully packaged Coconut & Pineapple cakes from Aji Ichiban were mainly bought as presents for family and friends. 

Lastly an enormous "Gift of Hong Kong" box of biscuits with a delicious selection of flavours. The little Ginger Cookies and Jasmine Green Tea Cookies in particular, were divine, whilst the mini Panda Cookies are just too cute to eat!

All thanks to Mr. Grocery Gems - I think he may have brought home the equivalent of a small supermarket back with him! There were actually a few other items that I haven't included above (yes, really), like some noodle pots and even Hello Kitty shaped cookies. Bringing home new snacks is always one of the best aspects about going abroad! :)

OyatsuBox - Japanese Snack Subscription Box!

OyatsuBox is a monthly subscription service from Oyatsu Cafe that sends out a box full of the latest snacks and candies direct from Japan. It costs $25 (which is about £14.92) with no delivery charges on top. There were 11 items in total in my OyatsuBox, and the box was filled to the brim! I was delighted to find my favourite Japanese brands such as Pocky, Hi-Chew and even an exclusive Kit Kat flavour included in the box alongside many others treats and a helpful information sheet in English which describes all the products.

It's such a fun idea and a great gift for anyone who is a fan of Japanese snacks (or just snacks and candies in general!). More details online: www.oyatsubox.com. Take a look at what I received in my OyatsuBox!

Dagashi Super Pack: Even though this counts as one item it's actually a large pack filled with 10 individual Dagashi items. Dagashi is the term for classic small snacks, a bit like what we would call pocket money sweets. This pack had two Umaibo which I have reviewed previously HERE, large corn puff snacks that taste delicious. Also included are UmaiJelly, Mochi-taro, Choco Daifuku, Kakinotane-Choco, Classic Fruit Gum, Happy Pandaro and rare mini-Umaibo.

Such a fantastic selection here which we all enjoyed. My kids thought that it was Christmas again when they got to open all this all up! And of course this was just one item in the OyatsuBox, now onto the rest!

Pocky Matcha Chocolate: I can't shop for Japanese snacks without including some new Pocky so I was pleased to see some included in the OyatsuBox, especially as I have never tried this particular variety before! I love matcha (green tea powder) as a flavour so these look wonderful.

LOOK Sparkling Lemonade Chocolate: Described as a chocolate infused with a lemonade flavour that actually fizzes and sparkles when you eat it. I can't wait to try this!

Big Black Thunder Chocolate Bar: I've heard of this iconic brand before but never had the opportunity to try it. This Japanese chocolate bar brand carries the tagline "Delicious taste in a flash of lightning!" and this BIG version is for serious fans with double the impact. Sounds epic!

Kit Kat Dark Chocolate: A beautifully presented box of mini Dark Chocolate Kit Kat, an exclusive Japanese flavour made with dark Asian chocolate. I couldn't wait to try these and they were utterly delicious, with the most luxurious dark chocolate flavour and no bitterness at all. Full review coming soon.

One Piece Gum & Poster: One Piece is a popular anime series that has apparently taken the world by store. OyatsuBox is proud to include this awesome box of One Piece Gum and a bonus collectible poster. The packaging here is really unique with anime art on all sides and my eldest son can't wait to investigate the contents!

Big Katsu: This is such an interesting snack! It's a savoury strip that is covered in breadcrumbs to emulate a Japanese Katsu (cutlet). The texture is similar to beef jerky but the flavour is slightly spicy and salty. It was quite greasy but I shared it with my hubby and we both enjoyed this unusual snack.

Black Black Mints: Super strong mints with a big dose of caffeine! These are described as being perfect for studying or long nights at work. I could have used these during my Uni days, I had to rely on endless cups of coffee to get through my studying! Full review coming soon.

Pokemon White Chocolate Corn Puffs: These are Pokemon shaped corn puffs with a white chocolate flavour and each box comes with a limited edition sticker. 

Seriously cannot wait to try these! I've never had a white chocolate and corn puff combination before, or was even aware that such a thing existed. 

Hi-Chew - Suppaichu: If there is one Japanese candy I recommend that everyone should try it's Hi-Chew. They're uniquely chewy sweets that always deliver a full flavour. I've reviewed a few HERE and HERE but I've never tried this lemon version before. Each lemon Hi-Chew candy has little sugar bits within it that add a little kick of sour flavour. Just like every Hi-Chew I've tried before these are so addictive and tasty.

Russian Roulette Gum: This is such a fun idea! Each pack contains three pieces of chewing gum. Two have a sweet liquid centre and one piece is insanely sour! I tried them on the three Grocery Gems boys (I include hubby in that!) and my eldest son was the one who got the sour. It was so funny seeing his face react when the sourness hit, luckily he's at the age where he loves this kind of stuff and took it in good spirits!

A photo of all the goodies together! All the items are full sizes and the box really was crammed full. Even though I often try Japanese products it was still exciting opening the OyatsuBox, and especially finding that everything inside was new to me. This really would make a fantastic gift for anyone who loves trying new food products, and is also perfect as an introduction to the exciting world of Japanese snacks.

Grocery Gems Verdict: Cherizena Banoffee Pie Coffee

RATING: 10 out of 10.
Buy them again?: Yes! 
Purchased: Available from www.oyatsubox.com
Price: $25 (which is about £14.92) with FREE shipping.

I was sent an OyatsuBox for an honest review.