Mike and Ike Tangy Twister

After the last review of Mike and Ike I did, I was hesitant to try another kind, but temptation got the best of me. On a run to the drug store (I needed a can opener in a pinch), I picked up a box of Tangy Twister.

My expectations were fairly low, but they were cheap. When I opened the inner bag, I was pleasantly surprised by a fruity smell. Maybe it's because my expectations were so low, but I was almost blown away with how good these were (okay, they weren't THAT good, but you get the idea). I'll do a run down flavor by flavor.


Apple was pale green, and tasted like the Zours green apple flavor. It was pretty good! Very sour, with hints of Granny Smith apple, but it definitely wasn't a natural taste.

Raspberry, the dark red, was much better than the raspberry flavor in the Berry Blast variety. It was tangy with a raspberry-esque zing that reminded me of more expensive candy (Jelly Belly jelly beans).

Cherry was the lighter red, and it was also a lot like the Jelly Belly Very Cherry bean. It wasn't my favorite, but it definitely wasn't a bad cherry flavor. Once again, tangier than it was sweet.

Pineapple, in yellow, was pretty cool. It tasted like punch, the kind with lemon-lime soda and pineapple juice! Very sour, and delicious. It wasn't exclusively pineapple, but I really liked this one.

Citrus Punch, the orange, was so delicious. The taste was made up of a little orange, a little lemon, and thankfully, no floor cleaner. It was super sour and tangy, and just as good as the Pineapple.

Although the citrus punch, pineapple, and green apple flavors stood out most to me, I can honestly say that there wasn't a flavor that I didn't like. They were all sour and tangy, and that's how I like my fruity candy. These really made up for how much I disliked the berry flavors!

A

Just Born website

Morinaga Shirakanba no Koeda

I've been studying Japanese for a while, but it's always nice to learn something from candy. Looking at these, I had no idea what a 白樺 (shirakanba) was, and now I know it's a Japanese white birch. So, these could be called Morinaga White Birch Twigs.

In any case, these are a special version of Koeda chocolate for winter. The box claimed they were made cashew nuts and another mystery word:　ラングドシャ (rangudosha). After some digging, I found out that it was French - Langues de Chat, which means cat tongues. Basically, they are crunchy, buttery cookies that are sort of shaped like a cat's tongue.

I don't think I've ever had to do so much research to understand a snack! It's too bad, too, because these just weren't that good. All that hype for some buttery white chocolate. The box had 12 packs with 4 sticks each, and I have only had 1 pack since I bought them a couple weeks ago.

The sticks were very rich, and the main flavors I picked out were butter and vanilla. I couldn't detect any cashew bits in these, and a little saltiness would have been nice. They were okay, but very rich; not something I'd want to eat a lot of. They were such a let down, because I really loved the matcha Koeda. At least I learned something.

B-

Morinaga Website (Japanese)

Meiji Strawberry Yogurt Kinoko no Yama

The strawberry fest continues! This pack of Kinoko no Yama came from a variety pack along with a bag of plain, and bags of plain and strawberry Takenoko no Sato. The kinoko were cuter, so I chose to review them.

Strawberry isn't even one of my favorite flavors, but it's so readily available, seemingly year round. Pink chocolate sure makes for cute snacks, so as long as the flavor is good, I don't mind.


All of the flavors of Kinoko no Yama I've tried so far have been tasty. The texture balance is great, with the crunchy cracker and the smooth chocolate. The chocolate is a little on the sweet side, but the cracker helps to nullify some of that.

The strawberry flavor was light and fruity. I didn't really get the sense of yogurt from it, but I was pleased with the taste. Yet another good Kinoko no Yama flavor! The little bag only had about 6 pieces in it, if I remember correctly, and while that's excellent portion control, I wanted more!

A-

Meiji Website (Japanese)

Meiji Fruity Strawberry Meltyblend

There is a whole lot of strawberry going on in this blog right now! I've got another strawberry candy reiview to add soon, too. But about this one...

Meiji's Meltyblend (also known as Meltykiss) is one of my favorite chocolates. Ever since a friend sent me some matcha Meltykiss a couple years ago, it's something I look forward to every year. I've reviewed a couple other kinds (Dark Rum and Matcha), so this is kind of a mini-review. Meltyblend is all about texture, and that really hasn't changed.

The most recent strawberry flavor is really delicious. It's melty, buttery chocolate with a nice strawberry taste. It reminded me of strawberry frosting, and was very tart and genuine. Also, I found 1-2 cubes to be quite satisfying. Yet another hit from Meiji.

A-

Meiji Website (Japanese)

Hershey Kisses Strawberry Creme and Cheesecake

My friends at work and I really like trying new Hershey Kisses, so when one of my friends found these at Wal-Mart and brought them in, it was an exciting day. I'm not sure if these flavors are new this year, but they are new and exciting to me! Plus, the wrappers are really cute, which is a big selling point!

When I complain about the lack of limited edition candy flavors in the United States, I always forget about the Hershey Kiss. They aren't my favorite chocolates, but they certainly keep things interesting!


This might just be the cutest foil wrapper in existence! Perfect for Valentine's Day (and for my heart-shaped candy dish), the Strawberry Creme kisses have a very strong strawberry scent. The creme in the center, while not the most authentic strawberry, is pretty good. They taste a little yogurty, and the chocolate/strawberry balance is pretty good! I liked these a lot. B+


The Cheesecake Kisses also have a cute, classy wrapper. The Kiss itself smelled buttery and had a very mild cheesecake flavor. It didn't have the slightly sour, almost-lemony bite I associate with cheesecake. Instead, it mostly tasted of sweet cream cheese. This wasn't a bad thing for me since I'm not a big fan of the bite. B

Whenever I think about all the KitKat flavors in Japan that I miss out on, it helps me to remember that I do get to try lots of different Hershey Kisses.

Hershey's Website

Berry Blast Mike and Ike

The last kind of Mike and Ikes in my trio of reviews was sadly the worst. I am a big fan of real berries, but these were very disappointing. The back of the box claims that they are "bursting with fruit juice flavor!" That means exactly what it says - the flavor of fruit juice.

Once again, there are five flavors, and I'll take a look at them individually. I tried one of each to see without looking at the box to see if I could guess the flavors, but the only one I got was strawberry.



Blue Berry is noticeably not "blueberry" and it fits, because it doesn't taste like blueberries. It reminds me of a Dum Dum flavor, I'm just not sure which one.

Wild Berry doesn't really mean much to me, either. This one is green, and doesn't really taste like a berry. It's just vaguely fruit punchy.

Strawberry is very Chupa Chups strawberry - if you've ever had one of those suckers, you'll know what I mean. It tastes like how a strawberry car air freshener smells.

Mixed Berry is pretty forgettable. It's certainly not bursting with flavor and it's just vaguely berry.

Red Raspberry doesn't really taste like raspberries, either. It's missing the tangy flavor that I love in raspberries and it just tastes sweet.

So, these were pretty disappointing and forgettable. At least my curiosity about the various flavors of Mike and Ike is somewhat satisfied. I heard the Tangy Twister kind is good...

C-

Just Born website

Mike and Ike Italian Ice

I suppose this is part two of my three part Mike and Ike review series. Here we have Mike and Ike Italian Ice flavors, which have been out for a while and have been reviewed by many other people. I might as well toss my two cents in.

Italian ice isn't really something I have a lot, and it's not really something I think of as strong enough to have it's own variety of spinoff candy, but I do give them credit for being creative. There were five flavors in the box: cherry, blue raspberry, watermelon, orange, and lemon.


Orange had a good tangy outer shell, but the inside was really sweet and not orangey enough. It reminded me of watered down sherbet. Probably my favorite.

Cherry reminded me of Kool Aid, but it was pretty blah and I don't have much to say about it.

Blue raspberry definitely tasted blue and reminded me of a slushy. I didn't really get any raspberry notes from it though. Just blue.

Watermelon didn't taste like watermelon at all to me. I thought it was an overly sweet green apple before I looked at the box.

Lemon was okay, but not tangy enough, and was a little bit like a floor cleaner.

Overall, these weren't very impressive. I did like that they tasted like slushies, but maybe if I had Italian ice more often, I would better be able to compare them to the real thing.

C+

Just Born website

Mike and Ike Lemonade Blends

I'm not sure why, but I never used to like Mike and Ike, despite my love of fruity candy. I preferred Skittles. Somewhere along the line when I was an adult, Zours came out and I loved those, so when I saw Mike and Ike Lemonade Blends at a drugstore last weekend, I thought they might be worth a try.

The box includes five flavors: lime lemonade, strawberry lemonade, raspberry lemonade, and tangerine lemonade. I don't know if all boxes are like this, but mine seemed like it was about 50% plain lemonade, the other half being a pretty even mixture of the other four flavors. Here's a quick rundown of how each flavor tasted.



Lemonade was not too sour, but a nice mix of sweet and sour with a nice lemony touch. It didn't taste like a cleaning product, which is always a risk with lemon-flavored candy.

Lime Lemonade was very similar to Lemonade, but with a hint of lime. Again, it had a nice sweet/sour balance. I think it's the sour coating, which seemed a little different from regular Mike and Ikes in that it actually offset the sweetness of the jelly center.

Tangerine Lemonade wasn't very tangy, but it was okay. The flavor wasn't very strong, so I assume that they were aiming for orange but fell short and called it tangerine instead.

Strawberry Lemonade reminded me of PEZ, but was pretty good. It tasted like a tangy fruit snack. This one was probably my favorite of the bunch.

Raspberry Lemonade tasted a little artificial, as raspberry candy often does. It wasn't bad, but the flavor wasn't true to raspberries.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised with this mix of Mike and Ikes. The slight sourness was nice. I don't know that I would buy these again, though, because there are many candies I'd rather eat. They were fun to try, though!

B+

Just Born website

Nestle Strawberry KitKat

Seems Nestle puts out a strawberry KitKat every year. I received this one in a package from a friend a few weeks ago and just now am getting around to it.

I pretty much knew what to expect, because they can't have changed much about it from last year's (or other strawberry KitKats before).


The strawberry smell was intense, and a little fake. For the most part, the flavor was the same way. It seemed like there were some real strawberry bits in there, but not many. I wish it was more like the Meiji strawberry bar as far as real strawberry pulp. The white chocolate tasted super sweet, but didn't burn my throat. I don't know if the time I spent eating dessert in Disney World last week has built me up a sugar tolerance, though.

Overall, it was only okay. The flavor was pretty generic strawberry-flavor white chocolate. It's not one of my favorites, but it's not bad. I hear there's a matcha tiramisu flavor coming out soon, so I'll be on the lookout.

For more thoughts on this KitKat, have a look at ZOMG, Candy and Japanese Snack Reviews

B

KitKat Website (Japanese)