04.05.08
Toppo (French style caramel mousse)
What comes to your mind when you hear “French style caramel mousse”? I can probably say with some confidence that I’ve not had French style caramel mousse but I can guess that it might be caramely. It also might be light and fluffy mousse-y, a sort of airy delicious caramel. Perhaps with a touch of vanilla-y goodness or even, looking at the picture, crème brûlée. What it would NOT be is a circus peanut. At all. Toppo completely missed on the flavor here and it’s going to cost them half a pea for that. Personally I’d dock two full peas because I hate circus peanuts. HATE! But I’ll grudgingly only dock the usual half pea point for totally missing the flavor.
Now if they were circus peanut flavored Toppo they would be spot on.
As circus peanut Toppo, they have a nice pretzelesque crunchity from the outer tube. In the past Toppo has suffered from lack of salty in the pretzel tube but I don’t think this is the case here. It isn’t deliciously salty but it’s not outstandingly bland either. The inner French style caramel mousse circus peanut is fruity with a nasty chemical banana overtone. And aftertaste. If you like circus peanuts this is an awesome Toppo but if you don’t then you won’t even want to smell these much less taste them. Yuck.
The Guinea Pigs ranged pretty widely on what to rate these. Some were all about the 1.5 pea while others were comfortable with 3 whole peas. What they all agreed on was that these were not the French style caramel mousse they were expecting. These Toppo tasted neither of caramel nor mousse and possibly not even French. Unless the French taste like horrific artificial banana.
Since these were not “circus peanut” Toppo and because they had a mighty strong chemical taste and aftertaste, I’m going to give French Style Caramel Mousse Toppo a disappointed
Rating of 2 wasabi peas out of a possible 5 wasabi peas.
hiyoko said,
January 28, 2009 at 9:33 pm
Actually, it’s not french-style, but La France (=pear) — basically La France Fuumi, which means it’s got a hint of pear, which might explain the banana thing…
boo said,
January 29, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Being Japanese language inept, I can only go by what’s on the packaging if I do not have a handy Rob or Randall of the 2 Ls to translate for me. This can can get mighty entertaining sometimes but it can also be highly misleading others.
I had no idea French pears tasted like circus peanuts! The poor, poor French.