10.02.04
Yan Yan (vanilla)
And here we have the last flavor of Yan Yan, or at least the last flavor I can find at the local stores or that they currently make or that they currently ship over seas or…whatever, you get the picture. Previous JSFRs have featured the Yan Yan in chocolate and strawberry and now; heeeeeeeeeer’s vanilla. Whooo.
Vanilla Yan Yan offers chocolate sticks of quasi graham (and almost cocoa) with a dipping sauce of vanilla goodness. The sticks are satisfyingly crunchy but don’t deliver with the chocolate. They pretty much follow the standard Japanese chocolate stick formula and are more reminiscent of chocolate than actually pin point chocolate taste. Still, they are nice with the crunch. They are similar to the other two Yan Yan sticks in consistency with a little graham and a little Ritz all in a rounded stick like shape.
The vanilla dip is pretty white and sweet and sort of ho hum. I wasn’t overly wowed by the vanilla goo but it wasn’t bad and it got the job done as far as “gooey stuff to put on a chocolate lite graham sorta stick”. It just lacked a depth of taste I would have liked to see. Instead it was generically and pleasantly sweet without really screaming vanilla (or anything else for that matter). Of course, it wasn’t screaming CHEMICAL VANILLA FORMULA 73A either so that is a plus.
The vanilla Yan Yan suffered from the Yan Yan syndrome: Not enough goop for the quantity of stick, and quite frankly the sticks are not that impressive on their own. The packaging is pretty sweet though, the contours of the dip well fit the contours of the dipping sticks so it’s easy as pie to get all the goop out of the too short well. Sigh. If only there was more goop, I could give Yan Yan a higher rating but alas. Half a pea deduction for shorting the consumer on the goop.
Speaking of goop, this Yan Yan really nailed the taste combo with the chocolate lite stick and the vanillaesque dip. Neither alone is fab but for some reason, together they are the BOMB. Very tasty. Maybe it’s some sort of chemical tasty formula that is completed when the two mix but I was very happy with the taste combo of goo and stick with this Yan Yan. Plus pea points for achieving that, however they did it.
All in all, Yan Yan vanilla is a good eat as long as you still have some goo for a stick, so I’m going to go with a
Rating of 3.5 Wasabi Peas out of a possible 5.
