11.01.03
Yan Yan (chocolate)
The philosophy of Yan Yan is “Take these sweet cracker sticks and dip them in stuff”. The original has chocolate stuff for dipping and there is a strawberry variant that has (you guessed it) crackers and strawberry stuff. The original is quite yum. Crack in a holder if you will.
The sticks are about 4 inches long and by themselves are something between a Ritz and a graham cracker. They have that graham cracker sweet taste but a flaky Ritz kind of quality (but not as salty and not nearly as buttery). Maybe they are closer to a sweet stick like club cracker. Yeah, lets go with that. Not too bad but nothing to write home about and I keep breaking them. In that aspect they are more like a Ritz.
Now add the chocolate dip. Ahhhhh, the chocolate dip. Hold on, I think I have just gone to my happy place. I can’t say enough about the chocolate dip. If you have ever had Nutella this is just like that except hold the hazelnut and crank up the enjoyment to 11. Yes, this chocolate dip goes to 11. It is divine. If you need to, I can wait while you take a trip to your happy place.
Hold on…what’s Nuetella? Did I just hear you say that? Damn, get thee to the nearest market and pick up a jar of this stuff (and some Ritz crackers ‘cuz Nuetella and Ritz are a beautiful thing). Alright, if you don’t have time to go getting some Nuetella (and that truly is a sad thing) then imagine the creamiest peanut butter on the market, then axe the peanut taste and replace it with more of a nutty (hazelnut) hot cocoa taste. You think that sounds good? You aint seen nothing yet.
Yan Yan rocks. It’s the closest thing to sweet snack perfection that you are likely to come across. I’d even say this was the first 5 rated Japanese Snack Food but…The damn crackers keep breaking.
OK, that may be just me and my dipping technique but that does bring me to the major drawback of Yan Yan. The dip only goes down about an inch into the container. The sticks go all the way down but the chocolate? They short you on the chocolate perfection. There is not enough to last through all the sticks and that is the defining flaw to this almost quintessential sweet snack. Eventually you either have to eat some of the crackers with no lovely chocolate dip or you have to short each stick some chocolate, which leaves you in the same place. No chocolate on the crackers. The crackers are just not that memorable by themselves, especially after you have been dipping them in the oh so fine chocolate. Hrrrmm!
So until Yan Yan comes with enough chocolate to last through all the sticks, they will have to settle for a
Rating of 4.5 Wasabi Peas out of a possible 5.
Chung said,
February 16, 2010 at 10:29 pm
When a friend of mine first encountered Yan Yan, he had the same problem as you — breaking the Yan Yan sticks against the chocodip and finding that the dip section only goes down about an inch.
So, the thing I told him is that Yan Yan is not for scooping the heavy dip like how you would pick up salsa with a nacho chip. Yan Yan sticks are for light swipes against the choco dip like how you would baste the surface of chicken against flour before frying!
Swipe it gently on top of the choco dip, or swirl it around the dip while the stick is only lightly touching the surface!