08.01.04
Pocky
Welcome to August and the one year month of the Japanese Snack Food Review (which actually had it’s first entry on the 22nd). In celebration, I’m going to pull out the oldies and get them posted for you. This includes today’s offering, the original Pretz (if I can find them), perhaps those dough ball looking cookie tings and, of course, Wasabi peas themselves. How many weekends are there in August anyway…have I covered them all? Well, if not then, umm, I’ll switch it up, but for now, welcome to Back to the Basics Month here at the booniverse.
So pocky. I’ve said it before but it is worth mentioning again; Mmmmmmm Pocky. This is the basic fount of Pocky from which all other Pocky flows. It is the Ur Pocky, the paragon of stuff on a stick, that which has come before all else. This said, Pocky starts with the something of a graham cracker like stick as a base. Think graham cracker but nix the deep flavor that is usually associated with graham. What is that wheat? Oat? Whatever that whole grainy like goodness taste is, Pocky really do (does?) not have it. Instead it’s more like a vanilla cookie (The Vienna Fingers variety) but really not as sweet and a tad more bland. And it breaks and crumbles like a graham cracker (incidentally, my entire pouch of Pocky is smashed to bits from just hanging out on our coffee table. Of course, everything else in the world was also hanging out on the coffee table, but you get the idea of the graham fragileness of it).
Take the sort of graham but more like a not so sweet vanilla cookie stick, dunk it in chocolate and wala! Pocky. The chocolate is nice and melty and just a tad on the bitter cocoaesque side and goes alarmingly well with beer. You know, just in case you habitually look for some sort of candy sweet to go with your Coronas. Original Pocky doesn’t have a very thick coating of chocolate, but the flavor comes through well enough that you would hardly notice such a small shortcoming. It’s good, it’s basic, I think I’m going to give it a
Rating of 4 Wasabi Peas out of a possible 5.
