TokyoTreat Box July 2016 Review

Hello again. I'm back with another review of the monthly subscription box Tokyotreat, which delivers some of Japan's best and wackiest treats straight to your door (with no delivery fee!). This month's theme is Anime Characters and is filled with many old-school anime items as well as some new ones.

Tokyotreat offers three different plans: small, regular and premium boxes. Each one is filled with more treats than the last.

Let's get straight down to business and check out the small plan, which you can buy for $14.99 (or the equivalent exchange rate for your country via Paypal) per month.

Fortune-telling Chocolate Pills

The idea around this treat is so cute. Whether or not you believe in fate and fortune telling, you might as well give these cute little chocolate pills a try. This snack is based on the fortune-telling chocolate pills found in the manga/anime Dagashi Kashi. Below each pill is a heading, e.g. 'health', 'love', 'luck'. Pop the pill from the desired heading and on the inside of the wrapper is a symbol which means either great, good, not good or bad. 

Then you can snack happy on the crunchy chocolate pill. They're small, hard and crunchy with a yummy chocolate centre. I love fortune telling, even if I'm a sceptic, so even though there wasn't a great deal of snacking there's a great deal of fun to have! Even though my fortune reading was bad for health. Oops. Too much snacking, no doubt

Pokemon Gummy

Everything is coming up Pokemon at the moment. If you haven't heard about Pokemon Go, get googling! I was happy just to see something Pokemon in this month's box. I think I'll be putting the wrapper on my memory board.

The gummies are about the size of a twenty pence piece each and come in grapefruit, lemon and soda flavour. What I like most about these, which is quite a rarity, is they taste like what they're meant to! They've got a natural taste to them, particularly the grapefruit gummies and then taste way more like the fruit than an artificial alternative.

Weirdly enough, if you mix them together they also taste quite like what the packet suggests. I've just mixed grapefruit and soda and it does taste a lot like cola! It's an individual pack but comes with quite a lot of gummies inside so you can snack for ages, or shove all of them in your mouth at once and make some monstrosity of a flavour. I haven't tried it but let me know if it's nice!

Milk-flavoured Potato Chips

Yes, I had no idea what to expect either. But the packet was nearly the size of an A4 piece of paper so I hoped it was good. Unfortunately, as with many big bags of crisps, it was half full with air. Texture wise, the crisps themselves are crunchy and thin like a standard crisp. I don't know why, but I opened the packet expecting something similar to a prawn cracker even though there's a picture on the front! Oops.

Now, did it taste like milk? Not exactly. The crisps themselves are normal lightly salted crisps with a powder coating on them to give them the milk flavour. Though, it's not so much a milk flavour as a sweet artificial milk flavour. Perhaps not even milk. Maybe light cream. It's very nice though. I'm a big fan of sweet and savour mix snacks (I will eat a giant sweet and salty popcorn bag to myself in one sitting quite happily. Crisps and chocolate is also a favourite combo) so it was lovely to first have the sweetness of the coating then the savoury of the underlying crisp.

Overall, this snack is enjoyable but I probably wouldn't go out of my way to buy it again.

Shrimp Crackers

Oh I do wish they'd stop putting fish flavoured things in these. Though it's personal preference, lots of people love them and really, Japan is very big on its fish so it wouldn't really be a true Japanese snack crate without them.

This time I got my half-willing sister to try them for me. Mwuhaha. Turns out, though, they're actually pretty nice. The bag smells very fishy so I was put right off, but I've been told the crisps do in fact taste just like shrimp! But the taste doesn't last long. Good thing there's plenty in the bag then, even if the bag itself is only small. Definitely not one to share around (unless of course you don't like fish and you just want to palm it off onto someone else). Size wise, each crisp is about the size of your little finger and has a good crunch to it.

Brazillian Orange Pocky (Summer Limited Edition)

Ooo I do love pocky. I especially love orange pocky. You have no idea how sad I am that this is limited edition. These coated biscuits are to die for. You get the sweetness of the biscuit mixed with the zing of the citrus and in the end you almost get a chocolatey orange flavour. The taste lasts too which is more than I can say for some snacks.

There are two small packets of these beauties inside its boxing so you can have one for now, one for later. I would definitely eat them all in one sitting if I thought I'd be able to get hold of any more any time soon. If you get a chance, please do try this snack. It's my favourite from the whole box.

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Next, here's what you get in the regular plan, which can buy for $24.99 or equivalent.

Soybean Flour Mochi Rice Cake DIY

When I read the words 'mochi DIY' I instantly thought of the fabulous and sickly mochi cakes found at Yo!Sushi, and thought this snack would be similar. Though I was wrong, I wasn't disappointed.

This snack consists of a tray, two sachets of goo, one of soybean flour and a spoon to mix it all. I'm rather glad it was this simple. I've tried making mochi before and it's just a horrible mess. With tasty results, mind. In this snack, you put the goos into the tray, mix them together with the spoon - or rather, you dice the two together until they form a thick, muddled mess because they won't mix any other way, then sprinkle the flour on top and eat.

It's really tasty. I had reserves about the topping but it really brings out a strong taste. Again, there's the sweetness of the mochi and the extra added zing of roasted beans. It sounds weird but trust me, it's nice. Just be prepared to eat it all in one sitting because there's no way to seal anything up once it's opened!

Calpis Gummy

Mmmm this treat is delicious. Another milk flavoured thing! With surprisingly the same taste as the coating on the milk crisps mentioned above. I wonder if there's just a generic flavour for milk that isn't quite milk tasting. It's lovely and sweet though and I prefer these to the crisps I'd say because with sweets you're already expecting a sweetness. There's not as much of a shock.

There's a small handful of gummies in the packet (which is resealable), and each one is filled with a creamy milk centre that gives it its milk flavour. I would have to say this is my second favourite item in this month's box. I had to stop myself eating them in one go. I managed. Just.

Thomas & Friends Chocolate Pretzel Sticks

Okay, so if you're buying this snack, you'll be buying it for the nostalgic Thomas and Friends design or because you like the taste of regular old pocky (it says pretzel but it's definitely biscuit). That sounds like I'm snubbing original pocky. I'm not. Good old chocolate pocky is traditional and tasty! It's a soft, plain biscuit base smothered in chocolate. What's not to love? I just wish there were more in this packet.

Anpanman Ramune Candy

I'll hold my hand up and say I'd not heard of Anpanman until this box arrived. It''s a superhero comic and anime made for young children where most of the characters are human-like food. Anpanman himself is an anpan - a sweet roll filled with red bean paste. Fortunately, this treat doesn't taste of anpan but rather four flavours of peach, orange, grape and apple.

This treat is a small tube of ramune sweets; they foam a little in your mouth when you chew them. If you're from the UK, their counterpart here would be the 1p alphabet sweets you can get from the corner shop. However, the Anpanman sweets have so much flavour in them. Sure, the taste is a little artificial but they're strong and very tasty.

I love the packaging in particular. It took me a while to realise but once you unseal the top, you can rotate the yellow Anpanman face (not pictured) to open and close the dispenser. A small thing but very handy!  

Cocotama Snack

As you can see this treat comes with a collectable sticker. Each sticker sports a different character but rest assured, they're all very cutesy. Well done Bandai, you've done it again. This treat is inspired by the anime Kamisama Minarai: Himitsu no Cocotama, which is animated by the some of the same folks who brought you Shugo Chara.

Inside the packet there's a large helping of pink, heart shaped puffed-rice with a strawberry tang to them. Like the packaging and the design, they're small and sweet. And a little bit crunchy. Yum. I would have preferred them to have a little more flavour but overall they're very nice.

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Finally, this is what you could pick up in the premium plan. It costs $34.99 per month and includes all the items from the first two plans, plus these extra items.

Moko Moko Mokolet Toilet DIY Candy 3

I'm so happy I discovered this. I've told all my friends about it and they laughed as much as I did. This is another DIY kit, but unlike others I've tried, this one comes with something you can keep. A toilet. Yup. There's four possible designs you can have and I got the blue one, which comes with American-themed stickers to decorate it.

The toilet comes disassembled but assembly is easy enough. Then once you're done, you take the lid off the tank, fill the lid with water then put that in the tank, then you add a sachet of your preferred flavour from grape, strawberry and ramune in, mix it with the straw that's provided then slurp (from the bowl) a very sour, flavourful drink! I don't know who came up with this idea but kudos!

Once you're finished making drinks you can wash out the toilet and use it for other things. It even suggests on the packaging to put some soil in the bowl and turn it into a cactus plant-pot. Why not? It couldn't get any stranger.

Marutake Peach Drink

Drink it straight or freeze it and have it as an ice-pop! This peach drink is really refreshing but is only good for one sitting; it comes in a soft plastic tube and once you cut the top off there's no way of closing it up. If you've got a test tube rack, you could maybe prop it up in that.

Taste wise, it's not strong. There isn't an overpowering taste of peach and that's what makes it refreshing on these hot days. It's not particularly sweet either so it's great to eat alongside your other snacks even if you've had a sugar-overdose. It's just a shame it's so small.

Yokai Watch Chocolate

I haven't watched Yokai Watch before but it's definitely a growing trend here in the UK. Maybe it's the Pokemon/Digimon of the newer generation. It's on my to-watch list, anyway.

This treat is a chocolate lollipop on a stick in the shape of Jibanyan, the cat spirit and one of the main characters of Yokai Watch. It's a really well put together pop. The different colours are different flavoured chocolates, but the main taste is strawberry chocolate. It's chocolate with a mild strawberry taste; it's not overpowering. Personally, I'm not really a fan. The chocolate has an odd taste to it. I've had similar lollipops before, without the red colouring, and they've tasted great. So I'll have to put it down to that.

Black Thunder Gold

This chocolate bar is beautiful. It's small and fat and really rich. It's filled with biscuity bits to give it an extra crunch. It's one of my favourite chocolate products from any of the boxes I've tried. Once again, I just really wish there was more of it. It's hard to put it down once you start and then it's gone in a flash.

Thomas and Friends Chewing Candy

This is a very cute and nostalgic treat for me. Inside the outer packaging there are five strips of chewing gum wrapped individually in Thomas the Tank engine wrappers. Four are paper, one is made of tougher stuff that you can keep. Actually, you can keep all of them. The gum is easily removed from each casing without any tears.

Dragon Ball Heroes Snack 5

This is a puffed-rice crisp snack in a Dragon Ball themed bag. It comes with a collectable card featuring the super saiyan Goku artwork on the bag. As for the actual snack, it's a bag of curled crisps with a light cheese flavour. They're tangy with a slight sweetness to them. It's a reasonable sized bag but only big enough for yourself so if you're willing to share then you're a better person than me!

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A lovely little box, filled with lots of fab snacks. My favourite was definitely the orange pocky.

Usually in these premium boxes you get a non-consumable item. Although there wasn't an official one in this box, there were collectables in the dragon ball crisps, the cocotama puffs and you get to keep the toilet that comes in the DIY kit. All in all, a great haul.

August's box is themed Tropical Fruit! Hopefully that'll mean a lot of watermelon products, which Japan is really big on (and so am I)! Until next time!