02.14.04
Meiji Porte “Creamy Strawberry”
This is the second Valentine’s Day Snack Foodage and to our good fortune, these cookie/candy things made up for the bizarreness of Nama Ume Ame. The first impression I got when I opened one of these “Porte” candies was STRAWBERRY! It’s coated in chocolate and dusted with cocoa and still, the strawberry manages to come charging out and smack you in the nose. Wow!
The second impression, after crunching into it, was “Wow! They do a really good job mixing all the flavors here” and they do. The dollop of whipped strawberry is very strawberry and very good. Not a hint of any chemical aftertaste anywhere. When the Japanese set their mind to it, they can come up with some fantastic tasting strawberry.
Lets not forget the other flavors and textures, even thought the creamy strawberry is most of this cookie’s mass. The chocolate is smooth and milk chocolaty with a nice melt in your mouth quality. It sort of wraps itself around the strawberry and enhances it. There is no overpowering chocolate yet you do taste the chocolate through the strawberry. The bitterness of the cocoa dusting too is nice; it cuts through the sweet to add a good counterpoint to the creamy strawberry center and chocolate coating.
Lastly there is the cookie. The cookie is chocolate looking but it could have really been vanilla or graham for all I noticed its chocolateness. What stood out was the crunch. The rest of the “porte” is geared to be smooth and creamy and then at the bottom is a nice crunchity cookie. I am sure by itself the cookie is most definitely chocolate but it just got overwhelmed when combined with the rest of the flavors. The crunch though, nice crunch.
For your amusement and edification, here is a cut away detailing all the tasty goodness:
I had Rob do some translation (thanks Rob!) because I *still* can’t speak or read Japanese. He tells me that the diagrams (starting from the upper right) say “cocoa butter”, “Saku saku’s baked…something or other” (in the words of Rob, “I know the base kanji but I’m not certain what it is specifically. Baked…kanji shit, damnit I’m going to have to look it up when I get back.”). Most likely it is some sort of baked cookie or cracker. I’ll let you know. ANYWAY, continuing on, the middle left pointer says “whip cream” and the last is pointing to “chocolate”. Incidentally, “whipped” on this package came out more like “houped” which threw Rob for a loop. It sounded like “Hippo” more so than whipped which amused us to no end. Mmmm, strawberry flavored “Hippo Cream”.
We really liked these “porte” and decided to go with a
Rating of 4.5 Wasabi Peas out of a possible 5.
