Special Feature - FILE, Japan Edition: Drinks

I feel like I'm naming a Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoon with these titles, they're so long! I did manage to shorten 'Food I'd Like to Eat' into FILE, maybe it will catch on. Last time I did an assortment of random food from Japan. In this edition, as you can see, I'm covering drinks I'd like to...drink.

I got some bad news, my fellow Japanese snack enthusiasts: in case you didn't happen to notice, Pepsi has all but given up on 'wacky flavors', instead going all in on Nex (Japan's answer to Pepsi Max) & the weird one that allegedly boosts your metabolism. Oh well, there will be plenty of other drinks in the sea.

Interesting to note about Pepsi in Japan - they take Coke head-on, something I haven't seen since like, the 90s in America. See, the Cola War kinda fizzed out shortly after the Cold War did, so we stopped seeing as many ads where a Pepsi can beat up a can of Coke or something. Everyone involved just took their rightful place in the strata: Pepsi for the Wild Cherry Teens, Coke for your dad, RC Cola for your Moon Pie-eating Alabama uncle, and Faygo for Juggalos. As it should be.

In Japan however, there are things like this:


I can't read Japanese, so I don't know exactly what the ad is saying, but clearly Pepsi wins and Coke Zero is even shown in the commercial as a competitor! This is some Pepsi Challenge level stuff, folks. Unseen in the west for years.

Also, Nex itself has a name that instantly made me remember Pepsi' main advertising slogan when I was a kid and conscious of my 'generation': Generation Next. This ad features the Spice Girls, but I remember lots of sped up footage of girls in belly shirts & guys in baggy cargo pants holding cans of Pepsi up to the camera. Man, that was really more like Generation Poochie. Don't blame me, I'm a 'millenial', or something.

So, Pepsi is a bit of a dud in Japan right now - they aren't even listing my precious Grape Mountain Dew as a product! I'm glad I got to try a few flavors before the end, RIP Wacky Pepsi.

There are a few interesting Fanta flavors that seem to have just came out under the banner of 'Mellow', probably along the lines of the 'adult taste' KitKats these are meant for more sophisticated consumers. You know, like me. The kinda classy gal who writes four or five paragraphs about Pepsi. Yeah, I'm the target audience for the mellow taste of Lychee, Muscat Grape, and...'La France', which kind of looks like it might be a pear.

image courtesy Coca Cola JP

That's all three of the most interesting Fantas out at the moment  - muscat, lychee, and probably pear!

It's not just sodas I drink ya know...just mostly. I also like coffee, and coffee shop milkshakes.

image courtesy Starbucks JP

This one is 'Chunky Cookies Frappucinno', which probably contains no coffee whatsoever...but does, in fact, contain an entire cookie. An almond & dark chocolate cookie, no less! Looks delicious, not so strange, but delicious. Unfortunately I missed a few more exciting varieties that had things like pudding, coffee jelly, and other sundry bits inside. Maybe more will come out while I'm there?

This one's a bit of a cheat, as I've had this one in Japan before - and I love it.

image courtesy Tully's JP

It's a Honey Milk Latte, made with espresso, honey, and condensed milk. Ohhhh yeeaaah. I got them cold mostly, and they were so tasty. One of my fondest memories from Japan was going into a far-off Book-Off with my husband and then going into a Tully's. It tasted sweet, creamy, and absolutely delicious.

Finally, old stalwart McDonald's has a very cool milkshake out at the moment!

image courtesy McDonald's JP

Melon flavored milkshake, that is! I appreciate that it shares a color palette with the Shamrock Shake, but has a much more intriguing flavor. Although, I guess that depends on where you come from - to some people, an unknown quantity of mint in a vanilla shake might be quite strange, and melon is just 'meh'. Not so for me, and I'm looking forward to trying as I love melon soda. That's another one I'm looking forward to!

That concludes the drink edition of FILE for Japan, next up...I'm not sure! I'll think of something, I'm sure, as there is still plenty of food I want to eat in Japan.

Special Feature - Food I'd Like to Eat, Japan Edition: Part 1, The Randoming

So, I'll be in Japan this August! For about 2 weeks, so that means lots of meals & lots of snacks. Funny, I'm going to be there for the 40th anniversary (or is it birthday?) of Hello Kitty, which will be a bit lost on me. I don't dislike Hello Kitty, but I didn't get into her the same way a lot of people across the world have. I much prefer Badtz Maru & the spotty dog, probably named Dotty. Or Dolly. Or Dotty Dolly. That sounds about right.

Now all that being said, I do love themed snacks, and there must be a couple of good ones coming out in celebration of Hello Kitty's midlife birthday! None themed around tummy tucks and lip implants I'd hope; Kitty is aging gracefully.

from Fujiya website

Oh, oh my. Maybe I was a bit hasty saying no lip implants -but man, why do they not draw her with a lip-licky mouth all the time? It's so much cuter! These are your standard issue 'milky' chocolates with additional strawberry cream filling chocolates inside - representing Hello Kitty. Basically, I want this for the adorable packaging, because even though I'm sure the chocolates are tasty they're not exactly setting the flavor world on fire.

Now, as far as setting the flavor world on fire goes, here's an example of what I'm talking about:

from MisDo Website

Ah, delicious shoe fabric. Ha, I know what it means, choux pastry type doughnut full of Calpis flavored cream! Yes, that delicious yogurt-y, tangy, citrus-y drink that has an uneasy thickness for something labelled 'soda'! But I'm a fan - it tastes a lot like Yakult. This will be that...in doughnut form! Well, maybe more like an eclair.

 Mister Donut is actually doing a couple of Calpis collaboration doughnuts, including a traditional cream-filled doughnut, a cruller-style with the filling sandwiched between the top & bottom, and one of their special extra-chewy mochi-style pon de ring doughnuts - with the cream again sandwich style. Also an incredibly exciting mix of small doughnuts that are all Calpis flavored, too! I'm not ashamed to say a trip to Mister Donut alone is worth the air fare to me.

Honestly though, the place I've spent the most time at in Japan has got to be 7-11. My husband and I went there for a month after we first got married, and I think we ate nearly every meal from 7-11. Now, shockingly, I never went to a 7-11 in the USA - my state just doesn't have them. Our exciting gas station was Village Pantry. So I've never had a 'Slurpee' (an official one, anyway) nor did I experience the specifications of the hot dog spinner at a 7 and 11. Anyway, 7-11 in Japan is a much cooler place, with lots of convenience meals, magazines, drinks, and best of all it's all Japanese! I know I come off like a real fan girl in posts like this, but Japan really rings my bell in a lot of ways, what can I say? Where else can I get a cheese curry chicken cutlet, a magazine with a 10-page spread about fake eyelashes, and a grape Mountain Dew all in one shop? If you know, tell me. To illustrate the awesomeness of a Japanese convenience store, here is a video I found on Youtube: It's FamilyMart, but same kinda thing.

Here's some of the bits from 7-11 that I'm most looking forward to having:

image from 7-11 Japan website

Doria is a really tasty baked sauce, cheese, and rice dish - this one is unique as it is a curry sauce with chicken. Since it's butter chicken I presume it won't be a spicy curry, but I'm sure it's still lovely as it encompasses a few of my favorite Japanese things: Doria, and curry with cheese in it. If you like cheese naans with your curry, there is no reason for you to be afraid to combine them more intimately like this - it's delicious!

image from 7-11 Japan website

This is like a big ol' pancake sandwich, with whipped cream and maple syrup. It sort of looks like a dorayaki style 'pancake', but with a more traditionally American pancake flavor with the maple. While it isn't the most exciting thing on Earth, it's presented really well and I know the taste will be amazing...for something that comes from what amounts to a news agent or a gas station, especially!

image from 7-11 Japan website

Now you might be thinking, "Creamy, those are just the Brazilian style chewy cheese puffs known as 'pao de queijo', and you know there is a Brazilian food cart near your work that sells them, so what's so exciting?" To which I respond, buddy, that Brazilian food cart stopped doing the cheese buns, and look at the price! You get 5 fun little chewy cheese puffs for about 60p! That's how much ONE cost at the food cart! So...yes, I am excited! I really like these, and they're going cheap and convenient in Japan. I'm absolutely getting a couple sets.

image from 7-11 Japan website

You know I can't leave out my beloved cream breads. This one happens to be filled with cream & chocolate chips. Hammana hammana. I love how soft and squishy the bread is, and the cream has such a special taste - there is 'fresh cream' that is just the classic whippy stuff which is just great. Then there is this more shelf-stable cream that has the same taste appeal to me as margarine or UHT milk. If you are the sort of person who knows butter is better for you, but still prefers to spread weird margarine on your bread...these shelf-stable cream buns are for you. So basically, they're for me.

It's really hard to stop with this post, since I love Japanese junk food & snacks- I probably should've created a theme! Well, this will be Part 1: The Randoming. Up next will be part 2...The Drinkening.

The Bayou Soul, Camden

I make a pretty big stink on this blog about how I'm an American. Well, it's my right as a freedom-loving, red-blood-having, flag-waving American to make a big stink about it, damnit. Ever hear of freedom of speech? It's my blog, and I'm going all the way to Washington DC to take back the White House!

Bllhhhyaah!

Anyway, I miss the USA - I consider it my home, obviously, and I think it's fair to miss home sometimes. So whenever I see something opening up in London that seems authentically 'American', I get excited. Our cuisine isn't so hard to mimic, put cheese on this, put hot sauce on that, but yet it still often is missing that certain je nais se quoi from back home. Whether it's a lack of certain ingredients, something being considered not to UK tastes, or what have you - even the most 'American' of dining establishments here are doing one or two things pretty wrong. I'm sure it's the same for Italian, Spanish, and Korean restaurants when serving elsewhere in the world - and I can personally tell you that anything calling itself an 'English pub' in America ain't an authentic experience.

The interesting thing about The Bayou Soul though, is that they're not doing the 'classic' American fare from my region (the middle): stuff like burgers, hot dogs, ribs, macaroni & cheese, things you would immediately associate with the USA. They're actually specializing in a style of food that I loved in America, but never really expected to find much of here: Cajun! I'm not talking about a 'blackened Cajun' burger, although those are fine too, but stuff more like jambalaya, gumbo, etouffee, Louisiana grub. Now, I'm from Indiana - not exactly Creole capital of the world, but we have a restaurant back home that I adore called Yats.

Take a look at that menu and transport yourself to Middle America. Imagine you're a teenage girl, chubby with a passion for food. Who eats peppers on a dare without breaking a sweat, and who has on multiple occasions mowed down entire bags of Flamin' Hot Cheetos. Who loves starch & chicken, and trying foods that are different...That teenage girl is me, and the restaurant you love to go to is Yats. It's the place for me in Indiana, even now. So, have I had Cajun food in Louisiana? No, but I have had it in abundance in another iana, and that means something - hey, the owner of Yats is from New Orleans. It's just so good. So once I heard a Cajun place was opening up here, I was off like a match.

I was lucky to be able to attend the soft launch of The Bayou (Soul?), as I read about it in Hot Dinners. 50 percent of food, so I won't speak to prices except to say that they seemed reasonable for London. The service was also great, which isn't always the case on a soft launch - I'm sure they'll maintain the friendliness!

 The drinks menu was very cool, lots of interesting cocktails. I tried two, but only seemed to remember one (heh heh, funny how that works) which was the first. I can't recollect the name, but it was sweet & strong with popcorn on top.  Okay, maybe I don't remember the first one either.

I remarked multiple times to my dining companions that I would be having the biscuits & gravy with ham, as if they were disputing me. I was just so passionate about seeing 'sausage gravy' on a menu that I went nuts. Unfortunately, here is the only problem we ran into at The Bayou Soul, and it's one that I think only an actual American who loves sausage gravy like I do would care about.

The biscuits were great, soft & milky just the way I remember having them as a kid, and the ham was lovely - pink & smokey. Here's the problem...that gravy wasn't what I'd call sausage gravy.

This is what I call sausage gravy. It's a thick, white, buttery roux made rather disgustingly from the fat off of crumbled up breakfast sausage. However, it is the tastiest thing on Earth. Savory, thick, meaty, salty - perfect with slightly sweet biscuits. What was served alongside the biscuits here, however, was salty, meaty, and thin. Not bad by any means, a better gravy than most with nice bits of English sausage - but it wasn't traditional sausage gravy.

 Don't get me wrong, I ate it and enjoyed it, but I was surprised. Looking back it's even more surprising considering how accurate everything else was. I know you can't buy American breakfast sausage here, but I think you could make it. Buy ground sausage meat, add the traditional spices, fry...I feel it could be done, and I'm planning on trying it myself someday. Regardless, a tasty starter that was 2 outta 3 on the authenticity scale.

My sister in law got hush puppies alongside fried calamari, and they were more authentic. Fried spiced cornmeal, soft & tasty without that unpleasant polenta tang you get with faux puppies. I appreciated that, as polenta is an easy-to-find substitute when cornmeal is actually much nicer!

I forgot to mention another nice aspect of the soft launch, we were given lots of extra food! There was a tasty bread appetizer that was topped with a savory olive mix & then some fried chicken. The fried chicken was great, moist & well seasoned fry atop. Felt authentic, and very plentiful - also a sign of authenticity in an American restaurant, haha.

My main was the andouille sausage & chicken jambalaya and we ordered extra cornbread. Again, the cornbread was great - they're clearly using cornmeal in the kitchen and I really commend them for that. It's the basis of a couple of different American staples that otherwise taste completely different. I'm looking at you, polenta substitute propagandists. It's totally different.

The jambalaya was delicious, perfectly cooked rice that was well seasoned & incorporated beautifully into the sausage and chicken. It was just the way a good jambalaya should be - different textures, meat more flavorful, but everything having one unifying tasty flavor. Spicy without lots of heat, just right. I loved it. The only thing that made me chuckle a bit was on the menu it says 'often referred to as creole paella'...Yeah, they are very similar dishes, but I've never heard that phrase so I don't know how often it's actually being said, haha.

My husband had the shrimp etouffee, which was thick and well seasoned accompanied by rice - a nice seafood broth with plenty of large shrimps in it. I only had a little bit, but I might choose it as my main next time.

My sister in law had catfish but I'm not a huge fan, so I skipped trying hers - she seemed to like it, though!

We managed to have enough space for ice cream - well, I had enough space for ice cream and I think I spotted one of my buddies take a spoonful...but it was mostly me. I was looking forward to trying the root beer ice cream, however it wasn't available that night (d'oh!) thus sealing fate that I will be back. Instead we opted for two scoops of the Jack Daniels & Coke and the chocolate & cream. The JD&C ice cream was really nice, a sweet vanilla cola flavor with just the tiniest hint of alcohol. It was a bit like a coke float (the foamy half ice cream/half coke portion, AKA the best part) with a splash of Jack Daniels. Really great! The chocolate & cream was surprisingly tasty - I'm not usually a chocolate ice cream nut but this had a strong flavor to it where most other chocolate ice creams are quite dull. It was a nice combination!

That was my experience at Bayou Soul - the drinks were lovely & strong, the food was amazing and mostly authentic, and the service was super! It must be mentioned again that the staff was really nice, accommodating, and didn't mind that I took so many photos. Being so smiley & pleasant, they really made me feel at home too. I'll definitely be back again sometime. If you'd like to check out their menu, and I suggest you do, they uploaded it to Facebook. If you download the image you can open it up and zoom in to your heart's content.

Crosstown Doughnuts, Sea Salt Caramel & Banana

The area where I work is tantalizingly close to many cool food markets at lunch time, but just far enough away that getting there would almost always be a risk to my hour long break. That's why I was so excited when I saw on Twitter that Bishopsgate was to have it's own market - I'm quite near there, so huzzah!

I was doubly excited that a dougnhutterie I've heard much about had a van there - so I headed out, first day. When it comes to retrieving doughnuts, french fries, or burgers...I'll walk fast. I think I knocked over a few pedestrians on my way. Hey, thems the breaks when there is a new doughnut place around me - they should've known.

There was a great variety of flavors available, and you can see them all on the Crosstown Doughnuts website. My eye was immediately drawn to the salted caramel variety, and the addition of banana basically made me tent my fingers and laugh evilly. The friendly fellow manning the van let me know that it was the very last one, so my fate was sealed. I live by one rule; if there is only one left of something - get it.

So I scurried away with my sea salt caramel & banana doughnut, and sat at one of the provided tables. It's a very nice market, by the way! Lots of seating, and of course some of the best vans I know of all in one place...conveniently located near me, best of all.

I felt a bit silly taking pictures of a doughnut all by myself, but I know that taking pictures of your food is quite the 'in thing' these days. I do it, but then I also will write about that food - does that make me better, or worse? Frankly, I think people should take pictures of whatever they want and we should all stop judging each other based off the perceived quality of our Instagram feeds.

Back to the doughnut - I hadn't realized while I was eating or when I bought it, but it's meant to be a chocolate dough base. In my experience, it's quite hard to imbue doughnut batter with the taste of chocolate, unless it's a cake doughnut. It was the same here, with the doughnut tasting most like a regular, if not delicious yeast-raised doughnut. You don't need to tart a good doughnut up with too many extra flavors, anyway, especially when you've got a solid cream or topping. This doughnut had both!

The topping is salted caramel & chocolate 'soil', which seems to be crumbled dark chocolate cookies, there is also a bit of a caramel-flavored frosting, probably to keep the salted caramel sauce on. The salted caramel was delicious, as usual, not too sweet & and sticky textured - without any need to chew, and no tooth-sticking. Really perfect stuff!

The filling was banana, which had a bit of a gel/cream texture to it. It wasn't purely whipped up banana cream, as it's legitimately made from banana. You know when you pulverize a banana it has a certain texture? It's like that, mixed with a bit of cream and smoothed out. It tasted very natural, just like a sweetened banana. I don't know if it was actually sweetened, or if it just tasted sweeter based off of the caramel, but either way the smooth banana filling was just lovely.

I'm looking forward to trying more Crosstown Doughnuts! I had my eye on a couple more; the Creme Brulee and the Peanut Butter & Currant doughnuts, specifically. Check 'em out on the site!

You can find Crosstown Doughnuts at the new Bishopsgate Market on Tuesdays & Wednesdays, and at Leather Lane Market every weekday. I highly recommend you seek them out, and follow them on Twitter - they're out and about in London, and some of their doughnuts are stocked at various coffee shops around the city, too.

Birthday Cake M&Ms

Aw, M&Ms, it's not even my birthday! You shouldn't have.

Oh, it wasn't even that much effort? They're kinda just regular M&Ms with vanilla extract or something? Oh well...I guess then it's not a big deal. Thanks anyway, it's the thought that counts.

Sorry, final thoughts ahead of the meat of the review - but I guess I'm the fool for thinking these M&Ms would taste much like birthday cake. Chocolate is always going to be an overpowering flavor, and birthday cake flavored things I've had that translate well are always vanilla based - so things like birthday cake ice cream, the cream of birthday cake Oreos, and frosting.

I'm a supporter of the birthday cake flavor emergence in the American snack market, but it's a very USA flavor so I can see why it hasn't made it over here. Don't people have like...Victoria sponges for their birthdays here? With..."icing"? Pah! As a person who requested a cheesecake one year to the shock & horror of my family, I'm not a great traditionalist...but a plain sponge cake with a little bit of cream and jam? No thank you! Wait, I take that back - I'll have it for everyday cake-eating, but a birthday requires frosting. Let's get real. Put some frosting on it, and I'll start listening. I need to get that printed up on some tote bags.

M&Ms is no stranger to 'strange' flavors in the USA, and I've loved & lost many. The PB&J M&Ms to promote Transformers, the coconut variety, pumpkin spice (reviewed here by me previously), candy corn, carrot cake, and my personal favorite - Wild Cherry which as far as I knew was discontinued but it looks like it can be ordered online in bulk!

M&Ms kind of seem to have taken over for Kisses as America's go-to weird flavor distribution chocolate...The problem is that you can't really 'fill' them with anything like you can a Kiss, so it makes a lot of these flavors get a bit lost in the strong taste of Hershey's style milk chocolate.

These Birthday Cake M&Ms suffer from that - they smelled just like regular M&Ms, pleasantly sweet chocolate, but there was no hint of a different flavor to come.

I was surprised by this, but crunching them actually made the birthday cake flavor stronger - sucking them is the same experience as with regular M&Ms. Even when crunching though, it just tastes a bit like vanilla-hinted chocolate M&Ms. Generally, if someone gave you these and said "Enjoy these regular, plain ol' M&Ms" you'd eat them and ask no further questions.

Not really the experience I was looking for, I think if white chocolate was used instead it would've been a bit stronger & more like classic American 'birthday cake'. As it stands, it tastes like a decorative M&M on a cake that had a bit of icing stuck to it.

Kajitte Kajitsu Gumi, Peach

Gummies & me, it's kind of a lady doth protest to much situation. I say, oh, well, I don't really like gummies. They're not my style. Forget 'em. Yet here I am, approaching what must be my double-digits for gummy reviews.

I think they're just easy to ignore - it's not so much that I dislike them, it's just that they make up such a large part of the candy landscape that they just sort of blend in with the crowd. Sorry for the rep, gummies. You're allllright.

The translation for this candy is apparently something along the lines of "fruit & biting" - maybe a reference to the fruit flavors & the chewy nature of them? Also it's got a cool bit of alliteration - something along the lines of Foamy & Fruits or Chewing & Candy in English.

I remember that I was so interested in them at Candysan because they looked like little marshmallows & they may have been described as being sproing-y like mallows, but looking at them now they appear more like little pates de fruit, but smooth without the sugar coating.

I've never had a pate de fruit, but I imagine they're quite natural tasting since they're made from actual fruit - they share that in common with these gummies! They're very delicately flavored like an actual peach would be, and aren't too sweet.

The texture inside is very smooth like jelly, and similar to the chew of a marshmallow. Bouncy!

There isn't much to say about these, the flavor is natural, they're coated in a bit of a cornstarch coating, and they're smooth and soft. I'd try another flavor that sounded nice, but it'd be hard to beat peach.

Artisan du Chocolat, Original & Yuzu Salted Caramels

I was strolling along in Selfridges the other day, and they've definitely expanded on their food hall offerings. There were two competing macaron stalls, and an entire wall of exotic bars of chocolate - in addition to the classics like Prestat & Cocomaya. The wall of chocolate bars is a new feature that was pushed a while ago, called 'The Chocolate Library' which is apparently the largest collection of chocolate bars in the world. Intriguing. There were tons and tons, apparently 180, but I didn't get the chance to really take a look as there was a hovering sales person who was offering up chili dark chocolate...
my greatest foe.

I didn't want to turn it down and then explain why, and then get him talking about other chocolate bars - forced social situations being my second greatest foe. Looking at it online, there are a lot of interesting bars but most seem to fall into a more 'pure' camp - whereas I'm more of a 'camp' camp when it comes to chocolate. Peanut butter and banana filling? Sold! Exclusively Vietnamese cocao beans? Oh...how nice. If you're into that sort of thing, I'd recommend taking a glance through chocolatiers.co.uk before Selfridges, just because they've got nicer prices & they're a very friendly bunch.

 Artisan du Chocolat has had a section at Selfridges for as long as I can remember, and I'm glad to see that it's still there. So glad in fact that I bought a box of chocolates - that's how I show my gratitude always.

I was under the mistaken impression that these were limited edition, but it would seem they're quite readily available. Shows me right thinking that the world wasn't ready for yuzu caramel!

There are four rows alternating between the yuzu & salted varieties, making 10 of each flavor. There was a strong cocoa-powder smell once the box had been opened - unsurprising since they're heavily dusted.

They're just a bit sloppy to eat since they're dusted, but not as bad as I've had in the past - I would eat them at home rather than on route to a fancy ball-gown & black tie event, just because you might smudge.

I was surprised at the crunch of the outer shell, for some reason I had anticipated something either soft or quite thin, but in reality it's a bit of a thick, hard shell. I think this makes it all the better for sucking rather than chewing, but some people who appreciate a good 'snap' would probably enjoy the crispness here. The dark chocolate is a nice combination of bitter & sweet, and not too fruity or woody like it sometimes can be. Just a nice, standard dark chocolate that is just bitter enough to offset the salted caramel.
Warning, my nails are chipped in this picture!

The caramel itself is incredibly liquid-y, so it was basically impossible to get a photo! The salted variety was as you'd expect - saline & sweet, a little more sweet than the Paul A. Young variety, but more salty than let's say a Hotel Chocolat version.

The yuzu variety didn't have any salty elements that I could pick up on, which is probably for the best. Yuzu is a pretty zesty citrus, somewhere in-between a lemon & an orange, and the caramel captures this zinginess quite well - they're even a bit pepper-y. These were nice, but I couldn't help but feel that the dark chocolate sort of over-powered the yuzu. Maybe if it would've been a yuzu cream, or a milk chocolate it might've been a bit nicer - that could be my personal taste, though! I still very much enjoyed them.

I'd probably get just a box of the regular salted caramels next time, but it was certainly worth trying!