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chocolate (Page 24)

Limited edition triple-size Lotte pie snack is so popular, we’re unable to get our hands on them!

Major snack manufacturer Lotte’s “Pie no Mi” (literally, nuts from a pie tree) is a favorite, long-selling snack in Japan, available in any convenience store or super market. The standard version of the simple yet tasty treat is made from countless thin pastry layers filled with a smooth chocolate filling baked to a crisp, flaky consistency. And if that doesn’t already sound good enough, they’ve now come up with a special, extra-large version of the pies. But like so many other limited edition sweets, the “giant” pies are proving to be quite difficult to come by, something that our very own Mr. Sato from the Japanese RocketNews24 site has found out the hard way.

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  • Apr 4, 2014

New Starbucks Frappuccinos look and sound so good they drive us nuts even before going on sale!

Sweet heavens, someone help us because we’re squirming half in delight and half in agony after seeing the newest press release from Starbucks Japan. Half in delight, because we’ve been given a glimpse of the divine-looking new Frappuccinos that will be coming out later this month, and half in agony because we can’t have them RIGHT NOW!

And unless you have a deadly hatred of sweets, we think you just may feel the same way after hearing the description of the two new banana and chocolate based Frappuccinos that were announced earlier this week. Yup, chocolate and banana — you really can’t go wrong with that combination!

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Strawberry chocolate shrimp chips: For when you want sweets plus seafood and/or are pregnant

A week ago, we brought you news of how snack maker Calbee is pushing the potato chip with its gourmet, triple-thick slices of fried spuds. Potato chips are only one half of Calbee’s pincer attack on your salt-receptor taste buds, though, as the company also produces the phenomenally popular line of shrimp chips called kappa ebisen.

The extremely competitive nature of the Japanese junk food industry means that you have to keep innovating though, and sometimes in the process of pushing through existing boundaries, you end up in strange new places, which explains why Calbee is now selling shrimp chips covered with strawberry chocolate.

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  • Mar 28, 2014

Bake and feast — We try the new bakeable Kit Kats!【Taste Test】

Remember the bakeable pudding-flavored mini Kit Kats we told you about earlier this month? Well, we managed to get our hands on them, and also on the cream cheese flavored bakeable Kit Kats sold at the Kit Kat Chocolaterie as well. And you know what that means — it’s time for a RocketNews24 taste test! So, let’s get on with the baking and tasting, shall we?

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“Make your own Pino ice cream fondue” event to be held for one day only in Tokyo

Pino is one of Japan’s most beloved brand of ice cream snacks. They combine the simple deliciousness of a chocolate covered ice cream bar with the bite sized convenience of a bonbon.

Since their launch in 1976, Pino have become available in other flavors such as double-chocolate or strawberry, but their vanilla ice cream with chocolate coating has remains a firm favorite. However, on 13 April this year, Morinaga Milk Industry will be holding a one day event where you can not only taste brand new Pino flavors, but you will actually be able to create your own from over 100 different combinations. Details after the jump!

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Japanese dentistry student makes chocolate teeth for Valentine’s Day

It’s Valentine’s Day in Japan, and as the tradition goes, women and young ladies across the country have been busy preparing homemade chocolates to give out to male friends, colleagues, and that special someone. But we’re not quite sure the recipients of these grotesquely accurate chocolate teeth will be too thrilled. Uh…do you eat it one tooth at a time?

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This Valentine’s Day make the planets align with a set of celestial chocolates

If there’s one thing guys like more than chocolate, its gimmicks! If you happen to be doing some last minute shopping for Valentine’s Day your favorite beau probably wouldn’t sneeze at a standard box of chocolate, but if possible why not think a little outside the box? Better yet, why not think outside of the solar system: Planet Chocolates?

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Mint chocolate beer sounds great, but how does it taste? We find out

Every year at Valentine’s Day, a slew of limited-edition chocolates are rolled out in Japan, where following the local custom, women give gifts to men. Unfortunately, while there are indeed plenty of guys with a sweet tooth, few of them really want candies shaped like butterflies and rosebuds.

Thankfully, there are a handful of more masculine alternatives, such as the Final Fantasy chocolates we recently introduced you to. But you know what’s even more manly than a video game about a dude killing monsters with a giant sword while his hot martial artist girlfriend cheers him on? Booze. Which is why today we’re knocking back a mint chocolate beer.

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Don’t bother, ladies: Survey reveals most Japanese guys don’t want your Valentine’s chocolate

Valentine’s Day gifts in Japan are usually one-directional, with women giving chocolate to men. You might think the people leading any kind of counter-movement against this would be the girls, fed up with having to buy or make chocolates for everyone in the office. But a new survey shows it’s the guys who are unhappy, with 90 percent saying they don’t care or would rather the girls didn’t bother.

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  • Feb 8, 2014

Chocolate and chicken? We try Lotteria’s Chocolate & Honey Mustard Grilled Chicken Burger!

With a little under a week until Valentine’s Day, Japan is still in the midst of chocolate madness, and it appears the fast food industry is no exception. Hot on the heels of their unique french fries and chocolate sauce combination, fast food chain Lotteria has now come out with a burger with … yes, you guessed it — chocolate sauce!

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How sweet! Fans send 8,000 boxes of Valentine’s Day chocolate to one anime character

Unlike in the West, in Japan it’s primarily girls who hand out gifts of chocolate on Valentine’s Day. Although the most common pattern is for a woman to give sweets to her boyfriend or secret crush, the holiday’s scope has been expanded to include relatives, coworkers, or any guy whose kindness she feels indebted to, regardless of whether there’s any romantic sentiment involved or not.

In recent years, the recipient doesn’t even have to be a real person, as this giant haul of Valentine’s Day chocolate for a single anime character proves.

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  • Jan 26, 2014

From delicate nibbles to edible dinosaurs – It’s chocolate madness at the Salon du Chocolat Tokyo

Many of our readers have probably guessed that Japan has a passion for chocolate. But each year in the days leading up to Valentine’s Day, which is when women in Japan customarily give men gifts of chocolate, that passion has a tendency to turn into outright frenzy. Spend time in Japan before Valentine’s Day, and you’ll see countless special chocolate products and dedicated vending areas in every shopping mall and department store. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the Valentine chocolate madness has now officially begun in Japan, and what better place to experience the excitement than Tokyo’s own production of the world’s biggest chocolate festival, the Salon du Chocolat? Join us on a tour of the event and see what all the sweet fuss is about — if you’re a chocolate lover, you just might think you’ve died and gone to chocolate heaven!

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We try french fries and chocolate sauce at Lotteria Japan

We all know that there are few combinations that are better than dipping your french fries in a vanilla shake. The hot, salty fries mixed with cold, sweet ice cream…it’s a match made in cheeseburger paradise. But fries and chocolate? Japanese fast food chain, Lotteria, is betting you’ll make the jump from shakes to chocolate syrup with their new menu item. We knew we had to send Mr. Sato out to give this crazy combo a try.

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  • Jan 20, 2014

We buy limited edition gourmet-flavored Kit Kats — at the world’s first Kit Kat specialty store!

Who doesn’t love Kit Kats? They’re tasty, available in many interesting flavors, and they’re even considered a good luck snack in Japan for students preparing for entrance exams because the name Kit Kat sounds somewhat like the phrase “You’ll win for sure! (Kitto Katsu)” in Japanese. Well, the popular chocolate snack now seems to have reached a new level of refinement and consumer appeal, as the world’s very first specialty Kit Kat shop opened this past Friday at the Seibu Department Store in Ikebukuro, Tokyo.  A shop that sells Kit Kats exclusively? Now, that sounds like something to be excited about!

But that wasn’t all — to our further delight, we heard that the Kit Kat Chocolatory, as the specialty shop is called, was selling Kit Kats in original flavors created by renowned patissier Yasumasa Takagi. Well,  there simply was no way we were going to miss this, so off we went to Ikebukuro to visit the shop, on opening day, no less! What else could we do, right?
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  • Jan 19, 2014

My Melody gets ready for Valentine’s Day — and she looks absolutely sweet and delectable!

Readers of our site may be aware that a fair number of our articles involve collaborative items featuring cute mascot characters, including the lovable rabbit, My Melody. Well, here’s another gem of a character product that we think will make many of you squeal with delight!

Now, while My Melody may not be involved in as nearly as many business ventures as fellow Sanrio character and cat-of-all-trades, Hello Kitty, you have to admit she’s done quite well for herself since her creation in 1975. This time, especially for Valentine’s Day, she’s turned herself into something that’s sweet and melts in your mouth — and it’s not ice cream!

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Give your loved ones stag beetle larvae and more this Valentine’s

On 10 January, confectionery dealer Komatsuya in Akita Prefecture is taking reservations for their annual Valentine’s Stag Beetle Larva Chocolates. As a perennially popular gift of the season for their highly detailed resemblance to actual immature insects, you can bet they’re going to sell fast. But fear not! There’s a whole line-up of insect related good to let that special someone know how you really feel.

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Troll your friends with personalized “Made in China” M&M’s this Christmas!

We’re all familiar with M&M’s, the colorful candy-coated chocolates, but did you know that you could create your very own M&M’s? Okay, perhaps some of you lucky people have visited M&M’s World and already know about this, but for the rest of us who don’t, YOU CAN CUSTOMIZE M&M’s! You can even print your Twitter ID on it! If you don’t have a Twitter account, that’s perhaps the best reason to get one.

Our reporter Kuzo takes us through the customization process!

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Make chocolate from cocoa beans with this new chocolate making kit!

If you’re a chocolate lover, then you probably know something about the humble cocoa bean. But what does a cocoa bean actually look like? And how does it become a smooth, delicious piece of chocolate?

Now there’s a simple kit to answer all your questions. Even better, it promises to take you from bean to chocolate in a matter of hours. We take a step-by-step look at the process and discover what it takes to create a little piece of chocolate heaven.

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Enjoy the delectable taste of chocolately Edible Anus

Excuses are like anuses; everyone’s got one. That’s the reasoning behind the Edible Anus line of chocolates created in England. These handcrafted chocolates represent something that transcends cultural boundaries to offer creamy sphincter shaped goodness to the whole world, even reaching Japan where netizens have been left open-mouthed at the idea of munching on a chocolatey orifice.

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Chocolate Stand Owner Claims ‘Product is Original’, Skillfully Dodges Questions About Pac-Man

This is slowly turning out to be quite a week for sightings of unlicensed use of videogame characters. Just yesterday we brought you news of a smartphone game whose lead character looked so much like Nintendo’s green dinosaur Yoshi that the company stepped in and demanded that changes be made, and now our overseas RocketNews24 representative brings us photos of a food vendor in the Philippines whose stand and wares are plastered with a name and character that bear an uncanny likeness to Japan’s beloved dot-munching arcade hero, Pac-Man!

This boxed chocolates vendor was spotted selling from a small booth in the middle of a shopping center in the Philippines’ capital city of Manila. Unless the vendor is somehow affiliated with Namco, this has got to be brand theft! Smelling a story among all of the tasty-looking sweets, our courageous reporter went forth and confronted the sales clerk. Read More

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