11.17.07

Calorie Mate (cheesecake)

Posted in 3.0 Wasabi Pea Rating, Cookie, Savory at 9:26 am by Boo



We’re down to the last few badmovie acquired J-list snacks which would be a very sad thing if J-List wasn’t continually coming out with more stuff and it wasn’t so easy to place orders on Teh Intertubes. Never fear, Junkies, another order of fun oddness has been placed and is on the way. And to that, if you look off to the side of the main page, way down off to the side at the moment, you can see that I’ve added J-List to the blogroll. I’m going to have a tech conference with my IT guy (i.e. My Favorite Guinea Pig) and see what we can do to swap things around so the blogroll is at least somewhere on the “first page” as it were.

But in the meantime, Calorie Mate. Isn’t that just the best name? Calorie Mate…hee. J-List has this to say about the product:

For those on the go and too busy to worry about their bodies, there’s Calorie Mate – a well balanced snack food item that is packed with plenty of vitamins and nutrients to keep you filled with energy in order to keep up with your daily activities. Sports, work, studying… just eat one of these specially sealed treats and you’re back on track in no time.

which…even more hee. It’s Japan’s answer to energy bars. Calorie Mate comes in chocolate, potato, fruits and the soon to actually be reviewed cheesecake. OK, when they say “cheesecake” here I have to wonder if they mean cheesecake cheesecake or cheese packed together really tightly into a “cake” like entity because they really ought to take a moment and think about their marketing if they are going for the latter. When we pulled the Calorie Mates out we found that they looked exactly like Walkers Homebake Shortbread Fingers but smelled rather…boxed macs and cheesyish. They broke apart and chewed remarkably similar to the shortbread but had a distinct parmesan taste. They were also a tad dryer than shortbread cookies and had none of the sweet. Imagine pulverizing canned parmesan cheese until it’s finer than dust and then packing it into shortbread like molds until it forms a parmesan dust cake that won’t fall apart and you will have made a Calorie Mate.

To me, packed parmesan brick a cheesecake entity does not make. Unless you are going for cake of cheese, in which case spot on. I would think (hope) that cheesecake as a sweet cake like entity has made it over to Japan so that the Japanese are thinking wonderful, delicious, creamy delight when they hear “cheesecake” but you never know. Japan isn’t so much a dairy nation so it may be that cheesecake to them is a brick of caked cheese. As an American taster I have to say that Calorie Mate’s rendition of cheesecake, as I know it in all its desserty glory, is a gigantic failure. On the other hand, it nails cake of cheese like no other cheesy cake product I’ve reviewed. I’m going to take off minimal pea points here but they are most likely going to be reimbursed by the hee pea points for the name so…

I will give Calorie Mate a middle of the road rating though, because as one of my pigs put it, “If this is the food of the future, it’s going to need sauce.” Yeah, even if they were going for cake of cheese there is still the problem of Calorie Mate being kinda dry. You won’t want to grab one of these without also grabbing some liquid refreshment (or sauce) to accompany it. And with that, I’ve reached the end of the review and the beginning of the ratings section.

Rating of 3 wasabi peas out of a possible 5 wasabi peas.

9 Comments »

  1. Katrina said,

    January 24, 2008 at 5:34 pm

    These are huge there. I kinda got the idea they were for women dieting as they sold them in stores frequented by women. It’s Demo and a local store that had makeup, scarves and other stuff for the ladies. The same store had some kind of stuff that was supposed to make your boobies grow, or rather, I gathered that from the package. It was called F-cup cookie.

    Here’s a pic

    http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j106/katrinaburns/Japan2007369.jpg

  2. Boo said,

    January 24, 2008 at 6:58 pm

    Oh that’s AWESOME! F-cup cookies! Even if they tasted like arse, they’d geet at least half a pea for the name alone. And now I have to see if I can procure some for the JSFR. Thanks for the info and pic.

  3. Katrina said,

    January 25, 2008 at 12:41 pm

    After I posted that… I searched and J-list has em. lol

    There ya go! Just make sure to drink plenty of water to help the boobie growing herbs.

    You could also measurement test to see if they really work.

  4. Jeff said,

    November 8, 2009 at 4:48 am

    Dude,

    These things are so not for dieting, but more the opposite. I guess they’re marketed for the person without time to grab a proper meal, but they’re also highly addictive, and once you’re hooked, you’re eating like 4 per meal before you feel full. I used to buy 10 packs at Matsumoto Kiyoshi and they’d be gone in no time. The fruit flavour with a couple of cups of coffee? Yeah, calorie city. It’s a good thing I left Japan.

  5. Juno said,

    May 24, 2010 at 4:00 am

    Seriously none of you get it? This is a reference snack. From the popular Metal Gear Solid game series. Calorie Mate is a snack eaten by main character Snake to keep his stamina up. This snack was made for us Metal Gear Solid fans…

  6. Juno said,

    May 24, 2010 at 4:01 am

    In fact that is the exact box pictured in the game.

  7. Juno said,

    May 24, 2010 at 4:02 am

    Well actually it’s just recently become popular because of the game lol. It was out before the games.

  8. Steve said,

    September 27, 2011 at 3:49 pm

    Hello
    I’m wondering, where can I buy some of these online? I don’t care if they’re crappy or anything I’ve always had a desire to try one(thanks to Metal Gear Solid 3 lol) I can finally put that thought to rest, probably, hopefully…

    I live in the UK so I guess I’ll have to import which is fine but I can’t find anywhere that sells them..

  9. Boo said,

    September 27, 2011 at 5:53 pm

    Hi Steve. I’d try J-List (I link to it on the sidebar of the main page) or Nappa Japan (http://www.napajapan.com/). Other than that, you can hope that a Asian market near you is big enough to stock these.

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