09.15.07
Mike Pop Corn (butter & soy sauce)
I want to start out today’s review with a little background information. Frequent Guinea Pig Badmovie was, because I gather he does this every once in a while, perusing the offerings over at J-List’s J-Box’s tasty, tasty, Japanese snacks section when he found some awesomely JSFRable snack food. I can’t remember exactly what piqued his curiosity but he shot me an e-mail saying that he thought that this whatever it was (octopus Pretz? Cod Roe spaghetti snacks?) really needed to be reviewed. And also, he was putting an order in for said snacks, did I want to get anything else?
What? More snacks? Sign me up! I’d even let you in on a little preview of all the snacks (because you can get a whole lotta snacks for $20) but I can not remember what it was that I thought was cool versus what Badmovie thought was cool and it all wound up at my house this week. I am aquiver with excitement!
Also related to this tale is that my Favorite Guinea Pig and I were invited over for movies at Badmovie’s (and LunarGeography’s) house so we decided to grab a snack for reviewing. Badmovie’s parents were in from the west coast and I love it when I can snag a wider pool of Guinea Pigs. So I rummaged around in the snacks sack and came across this perfect gem. I mean…movies! Popcorn! Genius! My Favorite Guinea Pig approved whole heartedly and off we went.
Can I just take a moment for a hearty ‘hee’ for Mike pop corn? Badmovie briefly popped my hee bubble when he said that there was a Japanese word ‘mike’ (pronounced like mee-keh) but looking at the J-Box description I see that it is indeed ‘Mike’ and not ‘mee-keh’ so HEE! Mike Pop Corn. Versus Bob Pop Corn?
Right. Pop Corn! For a bagged pop corn, this stuff isn’t bad. I mean, bagged pop corn is never going to be as tasty or delicious as fresh popped pop corn so there is that. Mike pop corn is, however, up there in quality and bagged popcorness with the likes of Smartfood popcorn and I rather like Smartfood’s white cheddar popcorn. Mmmmm. I guess that stands to reason because Mike Pop Corn is made by Frito Lay Japan so they would probably use the same if not similar methods and materials.
Frito Lay doesn’t yet offer Soy and Butter flavor popcorn in their Smartfood’s line up and really, that’s a shame. This stuff smells deliciously popcornesque and robustly smoky for starters. It’s worth it to stick your nose in a fresh opened bag for a sniff or two. You can even see a light tan coating of Soy and Butter (I assume) on most of the kernels but it’s the taste that really shines with these fellas.
On the whole, I don’t like soy sauce flavor but I really liked these. They were properly buttery with a dusky hint of nutty, smoky soy and expertly salty like popcorn really ought to be. One could say, if one was inclined, that perhaps they were a little extra salty but in a totally excellent salted popcorn way (versus a really salty salt lick way). The majority of my Guinea Pigs were fond of Mike Pop Corn (soy and butter) and thought a
4 wasabi peas out of a possible 5 wasabi peas rating was quite appropriate.
Kevin said,
September 19, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Keep your bubble, but the Mike on the popcorn is a Japanese word and not a name (unless the jlist people lied to me). That doesn’t make it any less funny.
Of course, scanning through their website leads me to all sorts of snacks they didn’t have before. Like Melon-flavored KitKats and Canadian Maple Syrup Lotte Toppo. Honey Lemon Pretz. And something that’s “Smorky Cheese” flavored.
And may I also add that “Hello Kitty Chupa Chups” counts as miscegenation, as far as I’m concerned.