05.15.04
Ogontoh
This is another snack food I purchased for the name. It sounds like they should be either some Judo maneuver or at least a minor elder god waiting to snack on someone’s brain. Heh, Ogontoh. I keep referring to them as either otogari (which is a bastardization of a Judo throw) or Ontonagon (which is a city in the UP). They are also one of the few hard candies reviewed so far in the JSFR and to date, the tastiest.
First off, they get oodles of points for the look.
Is this not the clearest most liquid looking hard candy ever? With its almost glass like transparency and absolutely no flaws in any of the candies, I’d say so. Besides, not only do they have the whole cool see through thing going on, they also have this wicked trapezoidal/conical thing happening. One of TheMan’s coworkers took a look at it and decided they would be awesome cathedral lanterns in a gingerbread church. You know, if you happen to be an architect student who…ummm…does gingerbread houses on the side. Right, moving on.
If I had to give a single descriptive word review, that word would be “smooth”. They look smooth, they taste smooth and they have a smooth texture. They probably smell smooth and I bet if you dropped one and it shattered, it would do so in the smoothest way possible. I just liked these all around for their command of smooth.
As far as taste, some people were all sorts of wild about it while others enjoyed it and still others thought they merely OK. The general consensus was that they are either rock candyesque or the hard candy version of cotton candy. They have a slightly mild toasty/caramel/light molassesy taste to them but solid cotton candy is a pretty apt description. A British coworker of mine said they reminded her of candy she used to get as a child in England. Another guinea pig said that they were “[a] kind of warm, comfort flavor. Buttery. A soft flavor for a hard candy.”
Many people also commented that they were surprised at how sweet the candies were. With the foreknowledge that the candy was Japanese, they were expecting something in the traditional not so sweet category. I’m not sure if that added or subtracted to their experience or not, but it’s worth noting.
Although TheMan and a couple other of my tasters were all about this being the first 5 item for the JSFR, enough other people were only sort of impressed so I decided to give Ogontoh a
Rating of 4.5 Wasabi Peas out of a possible 5.
slut said,
March 24, 2009 at 11:30 pm
WHERE THE F*** DO I GET THIS?!?!??!?!?!?
Boo said,
March 26, 2009 at 8:35 pm
Well alright then, I guess someone’s got a desperate Ogontoh thing going. As always, the best place to find these things is probably your local Asian food store. Otherwise, I’d recommend going online and checking J-List or go to the source and order from Maruwa’s website.
Trish said,
August 29, 2009 at 9:10 am
Mm-mm yum. I’m eating right now. It’s tasty and burnt sugary. It the most beautiful looking candy- like a clear perfect crystal. I bought these in Taiwan.
By the way, why would be people be surprised by how sweet these are, considering they are PURE CANE SUGAR. If it’s sugar flavored, it’s gonna be sweet. Duh.
Boo said,
September 4, 2009 at 10:34 pm
Man, I haven’t seen these for ages, I’m envying you right now Trish. I have no answer for the surprise sugary thing…it is mystifying.
bitguru said,
September 25, 2009 at 7:34 pm
I just bought a package of these at a local Asian grocery.
I’ll take your bet on shattering, because I accidentally dropped one onto a concrete parking garage floor and it ended up in several splintery pieces, some of which were too small to even pick up.
I though the shape and texture were great, but was hoping for more in the way of flavor. Do you think these are the same thing as the product http://www.typetive.com/candyblog/item/japanese_tea_sugar_candy/ except unflavored?
Boo said,
September 25, 2009 at 7:57 pm
Hello bitguru. I expect that Ogontoh is related to Juntsuyu from Candyblog’s post in the same way Hydrox and Oreos are related. We did not taste any tea or Jasmine in the Ogontoh and when I compare and contrast the Japanese I can’t find any common characters. Then again, it could be a reimaging of the product considering this was reviewed in ’04 and Juntsuyu in ’06 but I seem to come up with both currently. Try as I Google might, I can’t seem to come up with both on the same site. I might make this a quest to figure out what the difference between Ogontoh and Juntsuyu is.