What sounds like a crime against food, turned out to be a cute and delicious surprise.
With Valentine’s Day just a few days away, it’s time to start thinking about what to present to your loved one, which in the case of Japan, is almost always chocolate. Chocolate and Japanese Valentine’s Day are so intertwined that it sometimes feels less of a romantic event and more of a nationwide celebration of chocolate. Each year sees the coming of fairly standard chocolates, bizarre creations like ones that taste of fish, and the unexpected ones in the shape of a male masturbatory aid.
This year, we happened to hear about the Popping Candy Chocolate: Omurice Tin from chocolatier Mary’s. The combination of omurice, or omelet-topped ketchup-fried rice, and chocolate almost feels forbidden, as unsettling as putting whipped cream on sushi, or dumping cereal into ramen.
▼ The appearance of the forbidden chocolate?
However, word of mouth was that Mary’s omurice chocolate was actually surprisingly tasty, so with curiosity getting the better of us, we looked up where to pick some up. It turns out that the chocolates are available only at department stores, train station commercial facilities, and online shops, but after checking the Valentine’s corner of our nearest Takashimaya department store, we managed to find them.
Although the omurice chocolate is available all by itself, in the enticing green tin shown below, our heart instantly fell in love with the brown retro cafe menu-themed tin sitting nearby.
This tin contains a nine-type assortment recreating retro cafe menu items, such as melon cream soda and pancakes, in chocolate form.
Since it also happens to include the omurice chocolate we were after, we decided on getting the retro cafe set, officially called the Popping Candy Chocolate: Cafe Menu Tin, for 2,700 yen (US$17).
After closer inspection of the tin upon returning home, we came to the conclusion that it truly is absurdly retro-cute no matter which angle you admire it from.
Opening up the tin, we found:
- Cola Float Chocolate (three pieces)
- Cider Chocolate (three pieces)
- Melon Cream Soda Chocolate (three pieces)
- Mixed Juice Chocolate (three pieces)
- Strawberry Soda Chocolate (three pieces)
- Pancake Chocolate (three pieces)
- Shortcake Chocolate (three pieces)
- Omurice Chocolate (two pieces)
- Fruit Sandwich Chocolate (two pieces)
…all making for a total of 25 pieces.
▼ Even the wrappers are super adorable.
When you unwrap the chocolates and line them up, they look like pastel-colored jewels.
Much like the name of the product suggests, the main feature of this chocolate is the popping candy, which seems like it would be a fantastic fit for the soda-based flavors, but we couldn’t wrap our heads around how that would play out with the omurice chocolate.
In appearance, it’s a small, round shape that, when broken open, reveals a two-layer structure that resembles egg atop some ketchup rice.
Putting it into your mouth, it opens with a gentle, milkshake-like flavor, before the popping sensation starts to go wild, followed by a faint ketchup-like taste.
Rather than being a simple novelty, you can tell that Mary’s were genuinely trying to recreate the flavors of omurice while still maintaining within the realm of “actually tasty chocolate.” Even so, we couldn’t help but feel that the popping candy is quite strong, ultimately stealing the limelight.
Next, we tried the fruit sandwich chocolate.
This one is mostly white and feels like white chocolate overall. Within the milky flavor, the relentless popping candy doesn’t fail to make its presence known once again.
While we originally thought these chocolates would be a mere novelty item, they actually turned out to be surprisingly delicious. If you do happen to spot them in a Valentine’s Day section in a store near you, they would make a pretty great gift. Next, we just need to figure out what to do with our cute empty tin.
Related: Mary’s Website, Online Store
Photos ©SoraNews24
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