Japanese Kit Kat Party

My friend from Japan is so sweet! She remembered how much I've been dying to try Japanese Kit Kats and being as super sweet as she is, brought me back some! Three flavors to be exact: banana milkshake, blueberry, and regular milk chocolate. I decided to dive into the most exotic of the three first: banana milkshake.

Adorable packaging ^^ !!?

I was actually surprised at how orange it looked 0-0

Uh...banana flavor, right?

After consuming the bag over a course of a few short days, I decided to give the blueberry flavor a try.

Another adorable packaging

The packaging was a bit deceiving however. The Kit Kat (once opened) looked as if it were a regular chocolate Kit Kat!

*gasp*

But the essence of blueberry was strong, so I suppose the odor made up for the blue chocolate coating I was hoping for :(

But it tasted delicious ^^. I had 14 to experiment with so I used it as an addition to my yogurt. Chocolate + yogurt = amazing!

So cute together!

And of course, the regular milk chocolate flavor. Not so excited about this one, but the packaging is adorable so what can I say? I definitely spend good money on Japanese Kit Kat over American Kit Kat any day ;)

Milk Chocolate

That's it for the Kit Kats (so far). If I persuade my friend to buy some more flavors, then maybe I can post a part 2...haha...maybe...

On a side note, this is what happens when you leave your mango out too long o-O...

Ew

Catching Up...

Wow, was February the last time I ACTUALLY posted? I guess this is my catching up post...cause it is not like I STARVED for the past six months...

I've made and tasted some great treats during my "hiatus". Once cold Sunday back in April or so, I made hot chocolate with whipped cream and pocky! Tasty =)

Decadent!

But look what happened to the Pocky after sitting in the cocoa for awhile!

I'm MEELLLLLTTTINNNGGG!

My friends also bought a mini cake that day so we all took pieces from that. It was a chocolate cheescake with raspberry filling...and it was pretty disgusting (this is coming from a person that is not exactly the biggest fan of cheescake, okay).

Yum?

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In the spring, my Japanese friend invited us to go with her to Japantown during the cherry blossom festival. It was so much fun just hanging out but she actually treated us to some NOODLES! :)

Notice the arrow? Hmm, guess what I had??

We ate at Mifune as you can see, and I almost wanted to eat the food in the window rather than wait in the line that went out the door. The green cha soba caught my eyes IMMEDIATELY.

MORE FOOD!

After eating, we walked around, watched the parade, went to several stores, and got soft serve. We were all tired coming back (probably cause we were so soporific from all the food we ate), but my friend's mom was quick to treat us with some other Japanese treats like kopeito, custard...

Custard :)

...and almond cookies. We even got to take some home!

Almond Cookie

Sweets & Treats

February = chocolates and sweets. Its implied with Valentine's Day. And after getting rice balls from my oh so cool Japanese friend for lunches, I decided that I should treat her and my friends to something sweet :)

Since Valentine's Day was on a Sunday this year, I brought my desserts on Friday. My first concoction was a chocolate loaf cake (looked like meatloaf at first) but don't worry! It tasted good...I think? Haha, anways, I topped it off with the Toaster Strudel glaze packets (all six) and ten marshmallows.

Would you eat me...?

Since the loaf was still warm, the frozen icing turned into glaze and made great "glue" for the marshmallows. The chocolate chips melted right on cue as well :3

After that, I made chocolate chip cookies. The lighting of the picture isn've very good cause of my stove light ><

My crispy chocolate chip cookies...gooey in the center

I took both these treats to school and got excellent reviews for both. Twas a sweet Valentine's Day :)

That same day, we received a treat from our neighbor: an armful of bread! No kiddin'! We got three loafs of Cascade Pride bread and some onion bagels. So nice of them :)

BREAD :D

Cheese Tamale Pizza, Green Tea Gelato, and Other Peculiar Things

January was a cold month. I found myself amidst rain showers and very bored. When my friend came over for the weekend, I was asked to make something to sate her hunger. The solution? A cheese tamale pizza! But, not quite :)

Cheese Tamale Pizza?!

Taking an unopened package of Tandoori Naan, I used a piece as my "pizza crust". I then scavenged the freezer to see what food items we had not touched in awhile. To my surprise [not really], I found an unopened bag of two cheese tamales. Looking at the nutrition info, I quickly decided to use only ONE (uh, 15 grams of fat in one tamale is good enough...).

I microwaved the tamale till it was warm enough and cut it up into random pieces to give it that "chicken" look. I lathered the "crust" with tomato paste before I added the tamale. I added parmesan cheese as a garnish.

Cutting at the "Pizza"

Before serving, I cut the "pizza" into two so that the serving and calories would balance out for one person per slice [also cause it was pretty hefty]. Cutting it was pretty hard, but the taste made up for it. Not sure if I'd make it again though :/

Friends Eating "Pizza"

If there is ONE thing I learned, it is this: Naan makes good pizza crust.

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On the second to last day in January, I visited my cousin once again in Berkeley. We went out to eat ETHIOPIAN. It was my third time eating the cusine and I STILL forgot to take pictures D:
The place was pretty good though and low cal. I MUST remember to take pictures next time D;

But I was able to take a picture of my Machi Green Tea Gelato from Ciao Bella.

Creamy Green Tea :)

Doesn't it look delicious? The green tea wasn't overpowering at all. You could tell it was in there but the flavor was mild enough to enjoy the creaminess of the gelato. <3

Now, onto the chocolates and candies of February *cough* V-DAY *cough*

Japanese Treats - December

December was a bittersweet month. I'll focus more on the sweet part in this post :)
It literally was a sweet month. My local Asian market reopened and I was so happy! Nothing really changed except they added a seating area by the bakery.

In celebration, I bought some chocoboy cookies, strawberry pocky, and some honey stix chips (which I will not be posting pictures of cause they were...gross). The chocoboy cookies I bought were the "generic" brand compared to the japanese ones (Meiji - Kinoko No Yama) that may look more familiar:

I bet mine probably tasted the same but some people like eating the real thing I suppose. I just wanted to try it :/

The "Generic" Kinoki No Yama Cookie

The cookie itself looked like a lop-sided mushroom but it did not detract from the taste, The chocolate and shortbread-like cookie complemented each other perfectly.

^ Cookie Tasted Good :)

Now, onto the strawberry pocky! I've had strawberry pocky before but I couldn't resist the halloween box! It was just too adorable:

BOOOOOO!

I split the box with mu sister, after all, Pocky is meant for sharing. And the great thing about Pocky is that it makes you feel like you're sophisticated :)

My Share

My final treat this December was from a darling friend of mine whose Japanese. She gave me a candy called Chelsea by Meiji. She gave me the Yogurt Scotch flavor and my sister the Butter Scotch flavor. At first, I was like Scotch? There is alcohol in this thing?! But I later realized it was a play on words :)

Meiji Chelsea Yogurt Scotch

The box slides out and the candy is neatly stacked inside. They're about 20 calories a piece, no fat. And they taste like any other hard candy that is meant to melt in your mouth. I do prefer the Butter Scotch flavor over the Yogurt Scotch though because I feel the Butter Scotch one has a more sweeter taste. Did I mention the wrappers? They're gorgeous...

Slides Out...there is even a message inside :o

A Very Belated Thanksgiving Post

Yes, it is Christmas and I have not posted anything about Thanksgiving! I am so behind! But, never late than never.

Anyways, Thanksgiving this year was delicious, nutritious, and perfect even without turkey. Who says you need to have turkey anyway? This year, we treated ourselves to garlic mashed potatoes, wild rice stuffing, rosemary potatoes, caramelized sweet potatoes, deviled eggs, lettuce wraps with yves ground soy and marinara sauce, cranberry sauce, pumpkin cake cupcakes, and a fruit dessert made from filo.

A Shot of the Meal!

My serving started out standard...but I gave into seconds...and thirds.

This is my plate. I went for the good stuff.

But how could I resist the rest? I remember literally sitting over the fruit dessert and eating the leftovers...everything just tastes better on Thanksgiving :)

Lettuce Wraps w/ Yves Ground Soy and Marinara

Pumpkin Cupcakes...105 calories each!

The Fruit-Filled dessert I DIDN'T eat :P

Beard Papa's - Telegraph Ave. - Berkeley

After passing this place in September this year, I laughed at the name. Beard Papa's? What's that? I later found myself staring at the computer bored a week later and found that they sold the most mouth-watering cream puffs, ever (at least from what the pictures showed). Next time I went to Berkeley, I had to go.

We encountered the Berkeley store in late October. The walls were a bold yellow and quite small. What else could you expect? It is after all a specialty store. They only need to much room for cream puffs.

Pumpkin Filling!

Since it was October, I was delighted to try their seasonal flavor of PUMPKIN! Yeah! The crust was soft and chewy but the cream filling on the inside tasted just like pumpkin filling. Like a pie with crust all over...it was decadent. I was surprised I didn't gobble it up in three bites since it was pretty small. But, on the caloric side, it was only around 240? Not bad, not bad at all.

Did I forget to mention the powdered sugar?!?