Meiji Gummy Chocolates, Three Flavor Drink Menu 2012

I love candies what are different, sweets of a different drum.  I recently made an order from NapaJapan, and these were one of the highlights in terms of different-ness.   NapaJapan describes them as such: "These round, chocolate covered gummies are a big hit in Japan.  Enjoy Grape Juice, Cola Float, and Strawberry Milk flavors.  Unique product!".

The box is very sweet, the illustrations and colors really put me in a good mood, and upon tasting the candy you'll see that the pastelly, gentle colors match perfectly with the actual taste. They're wee little beans, pinkie finger size, with about 20 in a box, maybe?

The weirdest thing about these is definitely the 'chocolate' coating.  It is only chocolate in the same sense that cake covering or white almond bark is, its got the same buttery and pleasant initial texture of chocolate, but with a vaguely waxy melt and mouthfeel. Also, when you chew, it just sort of flakes and melts in your mouth, there is no 'snap' to it--not that I really expected fine chocolate, it is after all soda flavored coating on a gummy.  The gummy in the center was very springy and soft, reminded me of most all sorts of Asian gummies, which I prefer to Haribo or gummy bear type sweets as these hardly seem to stick to your teeth at all, they're just juicy and springy.

Grape Juice was nice and tangy, not at all sour or over-sweet, definitely my favorite flavor--I love grape candy, and Japan and the USA have it on lockdown.   The Cola Float flavor could've just as easily been a root beer float, it is just creamy, vanilla-y with a spicy cola kick.  The Strawberry Milk is a bit of a let down, it was pretty waxy and more of a 'floral' strawberry than I tend to like. You can really taste the milkiness, however, which is awesome.  I hate when a candy is advertised as milky, and they really just mean white chocolate.  Don't get me wrong, I love white chocolate, but don't sell me a speedboat and then give me a Castaway style twig raft.

I'd definitely get these again, especially if another selection of flavors is released--melon cream soda, Dr. Pepper, and Cherry Coke?  Just throwing it out there, Meiji...

Crusha Milkshake Puds

I am a big fan of Crusha milks, although I refuse to call them milkshakes- they're flavoured milk, a wholly different thing in the Nesquik family. I also like USA style pudding, as made by Jell-o. I thought this Crusha stuff was going to just be a classic plastic pot of an Americana children's dessert. Little did I know at that time that it was super disgusting and that cat on the pot was in the throes of a vomitorious attack. In a word, this is gross.
I tried the vanilla one first, because vanilla is my favorite pudding flavour AND my favorite flavoured milk flavour. Nice regular packaging, foil lid, funny old cat on the front. When opened, there was no smell-not a dealbreaker, but sort of a bad sign. This was, by the way, like 50p at Sainsburys, so I wasn't expecting any kind of bouquet of vanilla orchid. It was a very thin consistency, not much like a "good" pudding, but a lot like the cheap, shelf stable puddings, which seemed to be what the Crusha Pud was modelled off of. So smell and texture was as I expected, and I was anticipating something that aped the very specific taste of crappy vanilla pudding in America. Instead of cheap vanilla pudding it was cheap imitation vanilla extract thickened with...oh, let's say, carrageen. Something tasteless and gross to think about. It also seemed nearly unsweetened, which made it taste more boozy than dessert-y. I bet the sugar was cut so parents could feel better about feeding this to kids, but Crusha Puds are only going to help children build an early tolerance to the burn of alcohol. Next up, Crusha Wobbly Blackcurrant Jello Shots. I'm blowing the lid off this whole operation! I also tried the chocolate, and the experience was much the same, although unsweetened cocoa powder is a lot more edible than imitation vanilla extract, so it won out tastewise...if there can be such a winner. I'm working myself up to the banana flavour--there is no way it is going to improve things. This stuff sucks, make your own pudding or spring for a Jell-o import mix.

PS...I Love You

I walk by The Savannah frequently, a South African import kiosk, and I have been known to pick up a Milo bar or two from there, or the rare Grape Fanta. This time, my hunger for exoticism wouldn't be sated by the crumble of a Milo, nor would I be satisfied with a taste of the trappings of my home in the form of grape syrup. This time it had to be new, it had to be you...PS I Love You.

PS I Love You is produced by Cadbury, and is a wafer bar with 'caramel creme' covered in Caramilk chocolate. I really like Caramilk, that sort of buttery sweet confection that could never be mistaken for actual chocolate. Wafer I'm neutral on, and I'm a sucker for '____ creme' so this bar was made to be loved by me.

Unfortunately like so many things that seem written in the stars, it just wasn't meant to be. The wafer was more in line with those dreadful, cheap pink sugar wafers that little old ladies pretend to like to look dainty. Dry, tasteless, no crunch factor. A KitKat coated in Caramilk this ain't, and that is what it should've been. Don't even get me started on the promise of caramel creme, I saw no evidence of creme besides the barest layer of sugar flavored grit meant to glue the wafers together, much less any caramel flavor.

PS I Love You, even though you're a dried out husk on the inside, I'm still into your surface. I wouldn't kick you out of bed for eating dry ass wafers, but I wouldn't kiss you goodnight.

Mountain Dew Gamer Fuel: UK Edition

As a proud American, I'm a fan of nearly all incarnations of Mountain Dew.  From my very first organ-inflaming sip of Code Red, to the last slurp of backwash in Black Out, I love the hell out of Mountain Dew flavors, with rare exception.  White Out was crap, that berry-ginseng one was stupid, and Pitch Black II: The Souring was dreadful.

Since moving to England two years ago, I've missed Mountain Dew--there are weird claims about it being 'banned' in the UK, some people claim it is because of HFCS, some people claim it is a dye, some people say it is Mtn Dew versus Mountain Dew-- whatever they say, they're wrong.  You CAN get US-imported Mountain Dew in the UK, it is just really hard to find--I'm not talking about Throwback, either.  My local grocery store sells Mtn Dew-labelled Code Red cans on the regular.

Anyway, 'Mountain Dew Energy' is the UK version of Mountain Dew, and it is pretty easy to find.  I think it passes as say, a Sam's Club version of Mountain Dew.  If you gave it to a kid they would know something was up, like dad lost his job, but they'd drink it anyway.

Britvic has released a new flavor of Mountain Dew Energy-- Game Fuel.  Game Fuel was long ago released in the USA as a 'citrus cherry' flavor, while here it is described as a 'wicked mix of citrus and raspberry' flavor because English people hate cherries almost as much as they hate grapes.

Full disclosure, I don't remember US Game Fuel that well.

UK Game Fuel tastes a bit like boiled sweets or a raspberry Otter Pop, and is sufficiently syrupy.  One of my main problems with Mountain Dew Energy is that it seems excessively carbonated, but this flavor is definitely more pleasantly flat.  It really does taste a lot like one of the dozens of Mountain Dew varieties in the USA, and for that it deserves a pat on the back.

Creamy Steaks: The Blog: The Overview

A few mornings ago, I was drying my hands on my towel and felt a breezy, stray hair kind of feeling on my arm.  I brushed the area using my other hand, and looked down--it was no stray hair.  It was a spider just right there on my arm.  I shrieked and batted it off, but I couldn't see where it had gone or where it had come from...

It was in that moment I decided to start a blog.  That brush with 'the big sleep' left me wondering what I had to show for all my years of eating snacks.  Nothing, plain old nothing.

I'm a married, non-college graduate of college graduating age with a nice job and a pretty sweet life, but I need something more.  A place to review the foods I so enjoy.  So here it is, another food blog with a stupid name.  No twist, no direction, no turning back... just like a spider that got batted off the arm of a coward.

Creamy Steaks will review creamy things, meaty things, sweet things, and salty things.  Sometimes whole meals, sometimes just snacks.  I will have pictures, and some of them will look horrible because of flash.  Enjoy it.