I've wanted to do one of these for a while, but in spite of their reputation, snack foods turned out to be kind of hard to find. The only non-standard kit-kat flavour I saw with any regularity was "salt and caramel". One evening trip to the Daiei in Sannomiya proved particularly fruitful, so here it is at last: the first weird food article!
I'm going to jump right in the with the pride of our excursion. Everything else will seem kind of tame in comparison after this, but I present for your entertainment and delight....Red-bean Pepsi. I'll wait for that to sink in. Red beans (azuki) are ubiquitous here (there's a sign in the Portliner station that just reads "I love beans"). And, quelle suprise, the people who brought us Cucumber Cola thought it was a good idea to introduce said beans to soda. It should be telling that the Japanese people in the store were regarding the stand with just as much bewilderment as we were. Well, I can't fault it for presentation, at least. It comes out a really pretty pink colour that looked GREAT in my blue glasses. When you're soda *with red bean flavouring* though, what else are you going to offer? As for taste. Let's put it this way: it genuinely tasted like red bean. Take that as you will. Actually, it sort of came in waves: a pepsi taste, followed by an intense chemical taste, and finally the bean hit. And, about 15 minutes later, I've still got a cloying sweet feeling.
Well, yeah. Okay, moving on to less unspeakably bizarre pastures... Roast sweet-potato kit-kats. These came in a bag with the regular type, so I had some insurance in case they turned out inedible (like the Pepsi). They come out a creamy yellow colour, which is sort of weird. How much chemical does it take to make chocolate no longer brown? In terms of taste, they're a bit sweeter than normal kit-kats, and there's a vague whiff of chemical with them. Maybe this is a reflection of how hard it's been to find sweet things, but I actually quite liked them in spite of it. I'm not sure I'd buy one over a regular kit-kat, but I wouldn't cross the street to avoid one either.
I've got a few others, but I have less to say about them, and will just write up whatever drole observation strikes me in the photo captions. Well, there you have it!
.....I have a stomach ache.
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