Japan Crate Japanese Snack Subscription Review and Giveaway!

Oh my goodness! I know It has been a very long while since I have written a blog post! 😦 Work has been busy, which is a very good thing, however, being a team of one means some things get pushed to the back burner. Unfortunately, one of those things is the blog. Many wonderful events have happened since I have last posted here, so I have much to catch up on!

This particular post is about another Japanese snack subscription service called Japan Crate. The company sent me a sample box from their service for me to review and, of course, I am not one to refuse free candy and snacks! One exciting piece of news is that I finally significantly upgraded my laptop! I have an upgraded video graphics card, bigger hard drive…the works! This also means one other fantastic thing…I can finally up my game on video editing and use far superior software! Yay! Oh my, oh my! I have been wanting to do this for quite a long time now. Learning the new software has been a fun challenge, so I look forward to making new and interesting changes to my candy video reviews!

I have reviewed quite a few snack subscription services so far. This is one of the largest, if not the largest box, I have received.  The service does cost significantly more than say, OishiiBox, at $25 a month. However, shipping is included and one receives far more product.  The majority of snacks in the box are full-sized snack items. Only the Grape Kasugai Gummies was a sample size.

Let’s see what’s in the box!

Popin' Cookin' Sushi by Kracie

Popin’ Cookin’ Sushi by Kracie

 

Nerunerune by Kracie

Nerunerune by Kracie

 

In each subscription box, Japan Crate incorporates at least one DIY Japanese candy kit. This box contained two DIY kits as you can see from the images above: Nerunerune and Popin’ Cookin’ Sushi.

Sardine Crackers

Sardine Crackers

 

The above three items are snacks that are in my giveaway! If you are interested in entering the giveaway, details about the giveway will be in the description box for my YouTube video review of Japan Crate. The video will be posted at the end of this blog post.

Hokkaido Potato Chips

Hokkaido Potato Chips

 

Sweet Potato Cough Drops

Sweet Potato Cough Drops

 

Strawberry Cake Candy by Hayakawa

Strawberry Cake Candy by Hayakawa

 

Grape Gummy Candy by Kasugai

Grape Gummy Candy by Kasugai

 

Pocky Matcha Green Tea

Pocky Matcha Green Tea

 

Pocky Matcha Green Tea, unfortunately, was a casualty from my camera fail! I was filming my review and didn’t realize that my memory card ran out of space. The beauty of having an accompanying blog post is that I can make up for any video failures! 🙂 I like many green tea flavored snacks, however, some are more successful than others. I am happy to say that his falls into the realm of successful green tea flavored delicacies! The cookie stick biscuit has a nice, crisp texture and the green tea flavored white chocolate coating is wonderfully creamy. In other words, Pocky Matcha Green Tea was delicious and I definitely recommend it!

 

Chocolate Cookie

Chocolate Cookie

 

Cookie Chocolate by Kasugai was another video failure. Fortunately, this is the last of my accidental video omissions. This was excellent! This chocolate is certainly in my top favorites from this box! The chocolate was rich and creamy with a subtle sprinkling of fine cookie pieces inside. The proportion of chocolate to cookie was well thought out. This almost reminded me of Nestle’s Crunch because the scale of the cookie pieces is similar to Crunch’s rice crispy bits, however this is far more sophisticated. Cookie Chocolate has a much more rich, darker milk chocolate than Crunch. This was excellent and I definitely recommend Cookie Chocolate!

 

Apollo Chocolate

Apollo Chocolate

 

Chococones by Meiji

Chococones by Meiji

 

This box contained eleven snacks, most of which were full-sized snacks! If you consider how much you would spend to purchase these from a Japanese Market in the U.S., you would easily spend far more than $25! My favorites from the box were: Chococones, Cookie Chocolate, Kasugai Grape Gummies, Hokkaido Potato Chips and Strawberry Cake Candy.

Now that I have reviewed quite a few Japanese snack subscription services, it seems that there are several that exist out there in the marketplace that can fit your budget or needs. Many of the services include shipping and can be canceled at any time. Some even include small toys in the package if that is of interest to you.

As I mentioned earlier, if you want a service where you receive a lot of Japanese snacks then Japan Crate is a good option. Their website is: www.japancrate.com

If you would like to check out my video review, watch it down below! 🙂

Japanese Treats Snack Subscription Review

I recently traveled to Maine to complete an artist residency at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, which I will blog about in the near future.  Now I am back and ready to indulge in candy decadence!

Before I left for my trip, the company, Japanese Treats, contacted me to see if I would be interested in reviewing their snack subscription service. As I am in the business of reviewing Japanese candies, I was excited to give this a shot! They recently sent me a package of  eleven items consisting of Japanese candies, cookies and savory snacks.

jtreats1

Below are product shots of the snacks contained in the package.

Chokobi: chocolate flavored cereal stars by Tohato

Chokobi: chocolate flavored cereal stars by Tohato

Ju-C: grape flavored hard candy Kabaya

Ju-C: grape flavored hard candy Kabaya

Maze Maze Drink: soda flavored taffy by Meigum

Maze Maze Drink: soda flavored taffy by Meigum

Kino no Ko no Yama: mushroom-shaped biscuits with a chocolate cap by Meiji.

Kino no Ko no Yama: mushroom-shaped biscuits with a chocolate cap by Meiji.

Zoo Crackers: Animal-shaped butter cookies.

Zoo Crackers: Animal-shaped butter cookies.

Don Don Yaki: Japanese rice crackers flavored with Northern Japanese frying sauce.

Don Don Yaki: Japanese rice crackers flavored with Northern Japanese frying sauce.

Kyabetsu Taro: Octopus flavored corn puff snacks. Though I stopped eating meat, I taste-tested this for the sake of my viewers. :-)

Kyabetsu Taro: Octopus flavored corn puff snacks. Though I stopped eating meat, I taste-tested this for the sake of my viewers. 🙂

Fortune Telling Candy: A hard candy that can predict the future!

Fortune Telling Candy: A hard candy that can predict the future!

Pakuncho: Cookie biscuits filled with creamy chocolate.  Disney characters are imprinted on each cookie.

Pakuncho: Cookie biscuits filled with creamy chocolate. Disney characters are imprinted on each cookie.

Pudding Flavored Kit Kat: White chocolate coated cookie wafers.  This is a bake-able food item!

Pudding Flavored Kit Kat: White chocolate coated cookie wafers. This is a bake-able food item!

Nigi Nigi Osushiyasan: Diy gummy candy set.  The gummy rice can be paired with different seafood-shaped gummies.

Nigi Nigi Osushiyasan: Diy gummy candy set. The gummy rice can be paired with different seafood-shaped gummies.

Of all the subscription services I have tried thus far, this has been the best!  Every snack contained in the package was excellent in my opinion, which is a very rare occurrence. If you are interested you can check out the Japanese Treat website at:   www.japanesetreats.com

If you would like to watch my video review of this snack subscription, you can watch it below.

Harvest Restaurant

My best friend Keyanna is a nurse and she very generously invited me while I was in town to a nurse appreciation dinner at this tres chic restaurant called “Harvest” in Cambridge, Massachussetts. I very rarely go to restaurants this fancy, so this was definitely a treat! Keyanna is the best! 🙂

We first started off with the seafood medley appetizer which included a nice variety of seafood: crab legs and claws, raw oysters, shrimp, and ceviche. The accompaniments were: tartar sauce, cocktail sauce and a light vinegar dressing. My favorites were the raw oysters ( so flavorful) and the ceviche. The ceviche was made with whitefish and salmon and had a nice, tart lime flavor. By the way, this meal was entirely complimentary from the restaurant as a thank you to the nurses for their help during the recent Boston tragedy. This included any appetizer, entree, dessert and beverage of our choice! I extend a very big thank you to Harvest restaurant for their generosity! They win extra points in my book!

Seafood appetizer

Seafood appetizer

Now, onto the main course! Below you will see some of the entree options below. As you can see, this is definitely more of a “special occasion” type of restaurant.

Harvest Menu

Harvest Menu

Keyanna and I both ordered the Painted Hills Farm Beef Tenderloin. Within the past six months I have tried to cut beef out of my diet, however, seeing as this was an opportunity to eat something very special I decided to splurge! Wow, was it worth it!

Painted Hills Farm Beef Tenderloin

Painted Hills Farm Beef Tenderloin

This was absolutely delicious! This came with smoked carrots, asparagus and an herb au jus. The meat was so tender you practically didn’t need to chew it! The meat was of excellent quality! The herb jus was very flavorful with hint of tomato flavor thrown in there.

Now come the desserts! Here is the dessert menu.

Dessert Menu

Dessert Menu

We decided upon the Milk Chocolate Creme Brulee and the Taza Chocolate Cremeux.

Chocolate Desserts

Chocolate Desserts

Both of these desserts were excellent! My favorite was the chocolate creme brûlée. Wow! This blew me away! Absolutely delicious! The custard was perfectly creamy with a nice chocolate flavor. Of course, the caramelized sugar crust is always a nice contrast to the smooth creme brûlée. The cookie…oh my goodness…the cookie was incredible! Imagine this cookie as being pimped out shortbread! This cookie was vanilla butter cookie, but wonderfully soft and chewy. Toffee bits were also scattered throughout the cookie. The texture was perfect and the flavor was spot on! The cookie paired with the creme brulee made for a magic combination!

Next was the chocolate cremeux. This dessert consisted of a complex mixture of flavors and textures. The cremeux itself reminded me of chocolate cheesecake. However, the interior was filled with a surprise salted caramel! The combination of the bittersweet chocolate with the salted caramel worked well together. To really experience this dessert, one needs to put all of the components together: the vanilla mascarpone cream, the chocolate granola, the salted caramel and the chocolate cremeux. The contrast of textures and flavors made this creative dessert sing!

I definitely recommend this restaurant if you want to go somewhere really special to celebrate!