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PrintQuest for Pocky
Deborah Leigh
Recently, I was having the worst craving for milk flavored Pocky, which are a fun Japanese snack. Pocky are long thin biscuits covered with a variety of flavored creams, including traditional flavors such as chocolate and strawberry. They even have fancier ones such as chocolate covered coconut.
I like the milk flavored ones the best. It’s hard to describe it. It is not exactly vanilla, but it is not an overpowering milk flavor either. Nor is it butter or white chocolate. It’s a subtle flavor that goes well against the crunch of the biscuits. Other things that I like about Pocky are that they are expensive and low in calories.
Finding the milk flavored Pocky can be little tricky though. After trying several conventional stores, I ended up at a Japanese grocery store. The first thing that impressed me was how bright and clean the store was.
What really made this store nice was how there were English labels on almost everything, and the staff was very friendly. I didn’t feel out of place or intimidated at all.
Quickly, I made a beeline for the snack aisle where I found an awesome display of Kawaii graphics on the snacks. Kawai means cute in Japanese, and the cuteness seemed to shine in almost all of the attention grabbing designs. I even found find myself wanting to buy something just because of the cute animal graphic on the front and not based on what was inside the package. The store had not only a large selection of Pocky, but other snacks as well, including little baked cakes filled with red bean paste and tiny marshmallow shaped like a cupcake. Most baked goods were listed as a “wheat” item, which I think just means it was made with flour.
Another surprise at the store was the huge bags of rice labeled by seasons. I always thought rice was just rice but apparently not. Other items of interest were the pickled plums, which are supposed to be sweet and rather salty, and the seaweed wrapped rice cakes. Being a vegetarian, I tried to avoid the meat case and the fish counter, but I did catch a glimpse of a chunk of an octopus tentacle for sale. “Poor Mr. Octy,” I thought as I headed to the check out line to purchase my new snacks. I think I’ll just stick to the Pocky!
