Cookies!!!
Unsurprisingly, hubby and I have found that of all the gifts we brought back from Japan, the snacks are some of most popular among our family and friends. And not just any snacks but iconic ones:
1. Kit Kats in multitude of flavors. Cliche? Yes. Fun? Yes! You can definitely find some of these at your local Japanese (or even Korean!) grocery store, but of course flavors are limited. I've consistently seen matcha and strawberry, both are ubiquitous and boring. The more interesting LE releases are Japan-only, like wasabi (sweet, with only a faint taste of wasabi) and toast-able "pudding" (by "pudding" they always mean Spanish-style flan, I did toast them, and they did have a custard-like flavor).
***Stock photos from Amazon and RocketNews24.
2. Shiroi Koibito. Our family went nuts for these and for good reasons. They're delicious, enough said. You can get them via Rakuten Global or even Amazon, but you sure pay one way or another, via shipping from Rakuten or marked up prices from Amazon, take your pick. Which was why we loaded them up with our move home and even then, our 12 boxes were woefully inadequate and disappeared pretty much instantly.
Then came this past holiday season and one of my sister's friend in Japan sent her a giant tin of Yoku Moku Cookies. Like Shiroi Koibito, Yoku Moku is a brand of premium cookies. The founder Noriichi Fujinawa first tasted a variety of butter cookies when he visited the town Jokkmokk of Sweden. Upon coming home to Japan, he went straight to work recreating the goodies he had and couldn't forget.
Turns out he wasn't the only one who couldn't forget the taste. My sister shared quite a few of these preservative-free cookies with me and I couldn't get enough of them either. The problem isn't their availability but their price--they're hell of expensive both domestically in Japan (5,400yen/20 sticks of Cigare Ice Creams, omfg!) and internationally via Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman, and Horchow ($27 for a tin of 18 Cigare cookies, seriously?!).
And then there was the Friends & Family event wherein Horchow gave a 30% discount to all merchandise, so I decided I'd indulge just once. I bought a large tin of Grand Cinq Delices (marked up to $70 from Japanese retail of 5,400yen), a Cinq Delices ($45, up from 3,240yen), and Double Chocolat Au Lait ($20, up from 1,296yen, and I should have gotten the White Chocolate version instead, dammit). So really, after the 30% "discount" I was actually paying the Japanese retail =.="
Unsurprisingly, hubby and I have found that of all the gifts we brought back from Japan, the snacks are some of most popular among our family and friends. And not just any snacks but iconic ones:
1. Kit Kats in multitude of flavors. Cliche? Yes. Fun? Yes! You can definitely find some of these at your local Japanese (or even Korean!) grocery store, but of course flavors are limited. I've consistently seen matcha and strawberry, both are ubiquitous and boring. The more interesting LE releases are Japan-only, like wasabi (sweet, with only a faint taste of wasabi) and toast-able "pudding" (by "pudding" they always mean Spanish-style flan, I did toast them, and they did have a custard-like flavor).
2. Shiroi Koibito. Our family went nuts for these and for good reasons. They're delicious, enough said. You can get them via Rakuten Global or even Amazon, but you sure pay one way or another, via shipping from Rakuten or marked up prices from Amazon, take your pick. Which was why we loaded them up with our move home and even then, our 12 boxes were woefully inadequate and disappeared pretty much instantly.
Then came this past holiday season and one of my sister's friend in Japan sent her a giant tin of Yoku Moku Cookies. Like Shiroi Koibito, Yoku Moku is a brand of premium cookies. The founder Noriichi Fujinawa first tasted a variety of butter cookies when he visited the town Jokkmokk of Sweden. Upon coming home to Japan, he went straight to work recreating the goodies he had and couldn't forget.
Turns out he wasn't the only one who couldn't forget the taste. My sister shared quite a few of these preservative-free cookies with me and I couldn't get enough of them either. The problem isn't their availability but their price--they're hell of expensive both domestically in Japan (5,400yen/20 sticks of Cigare Ice Creams, omfg!) and internationally via Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman, and Horchow ($27 for a tin of 18 Cigare cookies, seriously?!).
And then there was the Friends & Family event wherein Horchow gave a 30% discount to all merchandise, so I decided I'd indulge just once. I bought a large tin of Grand Cinq Delices (marked up to $70 from Japanese retail of 5,400yen), a Cinq Delices ($45, up from 3,240yen), and Double Chocolat Au Lait ($20, up from 1,296yen, and I should have gotten the White Chocolate version instead, dammit). So really, after the 30% "discount" I was actually paying the Japanese retail =.="
Were these cookies worth it? Unfortunately, yes. I shouldn't have shared them with family and friends, now whenever I ask what I should send along with a thank you note for the baby gifts, the answer I consistently get is, "Ooohh those Japanese cookies!" Argh. What have I done?!?
So there you have them, Yoku Moku sells some crazy expensive cookies, but they sure are delicious and addictive. No more indulgence from me though, at least not until another good promotion. Heh. Heh. Heh.
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