Monday, March 12, 2007

KitKat Red Bean & Fruit Parfait

DSC07962rI’m a mochi fan. When I’m down in Little Tokyo here in Los Angeles I like to pop into Fugetsu-Do and buy some wagashi with red bean paste (they do a lemon one with white bean that’s pretty good too). It’s not a mainstream taste for the American market though.

I was pretty excited to hear about the KitKat Azuki, though I had my doubts about how well it’d go with chocolate.

image

As KitKats out of the package go, this has to be the most unappealing.  It has a base of white chocolate but the little sticks are a light pink with some dusty mauve tones, just kind of mousey looking. It smells milky with a little touch of an earthy quality to it.

The first bite is crisp and sweet and it isn’t until later as it’s all mashed up in the mouth that the red bean notes come out. It’s not a loud and obvious flavor, just a light earthy quality, a little like beets or kidney beans. It’s not as unnerving as the Pumpkin ones from last year, but not something I’m terribly interested in again. This experience does not diminish my desire for mochi.

DSC07958rI have to admit that I liked this one. I saw other people chatting about it on the internet and I thought it sounded horrible. The Fruit Parfait KitKat seems to be a mix of banana, melon, orange, blueberry and strawberry flavors if the photo is accurate.

I can’t say I have a lot experience with fruit parfaits ... are they like a fruit tiramisu? (On a vaguely related note, in my youthful ignorance I thought that tiramisu was a Japanese dessert before I’d actually had it.)

It’s another one of those white chocolate KitKats.

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The bars really aren’t that attractive with their rippled colors of white chocolate. They smell like a cross between bananas and yogurt. The taste is rather similar. The white coating isn’t too sickly sweet and has some nice berry flavors with an overall banana background. I even got some melon and blueberry flavors in there sometimes. The wafers are crisp and feature a cream filling that’s a little pink and has more of the berry flavors to it.

I liked it. I ate it. I hope I don’t run across any others, it’s one of those candies that doesn’t make me feel good about myself for liking it. (Is it the polka dots on the package? The smell? The word Parfait? Should I run a poll?)

Name: KitKat Azuki & Fruit Parfait
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Nestle
Place Purchased: gift from Amy & Santos (thanks!)
Price: unknown
Size: unknown
Calories per ounce: unknown
Categories: White Chocolate, Cookie, Japan, Nestle, KitKat, Limited Edition

POSTED BY Cybele AT 11:36 am Tracker Pixel for Entry    

Comments
  1. I have the Red Bean KitKat sitting in my cupboard right now. The box looks good but I don’t really want to eat it. <.<

    I didn’t like the Fruit Parfait flavour, there was too much going on for my liking, lots of fruit all trying to get my attention, didn’t go too well with the chocolate.

    Overall I’m disappointed with Japanese KitKats, there are a load of flavours and they pretty much all suck, except for their high class ones (Brandy & Orange, Hokkaido Blue Cheese).

    Comment by Terry on 3/12/07 at 12:20 pm #
  2. I grew up eating many a strange Japanese food and like just about all of them…except mochi.  I just can shake the feeling that I’m eating sweetened school paste.  I’m happy to know that other people like them, but keep it out of my bento box.

    Comment by Mad Cow on 3/12/07 at 1:58 pm #
  3. Ahhh, another mochi addict! Did it all start with me suggesting you check out Fugetsu-Do way back when? smile

    I was overwhelmed by the “banana-ness” of the fruit parfait Kitkat. The new Cherry one that was just released reminded me of this one, but had more “berry” flavors to it.

    As for the azuki bean one, I got that “starchy” flavor from it that reminded me of azuki, but it was also so sweet that it seemed totally removed and unfaithful to the original flavor.

    Comment by Sera on 3/12/07 at 5:10 pm #
  4. Oh my god i hate you guys. Down here in australia it takes years before we get exciting candy… green with envy

    Comment by Phil on 3/12/07 at 11:18 pm #
  5. Funny, I just got my order of Azuki Kitkats in the mail yesterday.  I liked it alot actually.  It is very sweet, and with just a tocuh of red bean flavor, but for some reason I enjoyed these qualities.  It reminded me of a honey redbean shake, which is one of my favorite things ever.

    Comment by Taylor on 3/13/07 at 10:28 am #
  6. I should check out the Japanese markets here as well.  Love all desserts made with red beans, so definitely will have to try it.

    Comment by Meow Meow on 3/13/07 at 5:07 pm #
  7. I love mochi too. Though, I eat the Chinese version, being Chinese American and all. We have a family friend who likes to cook and she makes mochi as well as a traditional Chinese pinapple pastry also known as pineapple shortcake or Fong Li Su every time we had a dinner party. Not so common now that mist if us kids are in or going to college.

    Comment by Trish on 3/15/07 at 4:10 pm #
  8. I just came back from Japan a couple weeks ago. God I love the KitKats there. That kitkat azuki is delicious, but the real one to hunt down is the hokkaido white chocolate! Oishii!

    Comment by Jason on 5/20/07 at 6:22 pm #
  9. hey

    Comment by tyler on 1/14/08 at 3:49 am #
  10. I thought the fruit parfait kitkats were to die for, but I only bought one box. :(

    Comment by Meghan on 2/15/08 at 11:00 am #
  11. I thought the fruit parfait kitkats were great too. I’ll eat a whole box if I have one right now but with the kids around, sadly, there’s no way a chocolate bar would make it out of our house alive. They all get gobbled up in less than a minutes time. My kids are choco monsters.

    Comment by Kathy on 4/15/10 at 7:05 pm #
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