You can't out-weird Japanese chips.

Another blast from the past kind of post for people who read my private blog.

Anyway, the idea of this post started after a friend of mine posted a entry on his blog about "Ketchup and fries flavored potato snacks". The conversation on that came around to the obvious meta-ness of a potato snack being flavored as fries but also that Ketchup is kind of an off flavor for fries. However, having lived in Japan for nearly 5 years at this point, I've come across things that were multitudes more horrifying in the chip flavor department, and as an example of that I went to the nearest convenience store and took a picture.

Here is what I came up with:


What is the flavor you ask? Scallops and mayonnaise. No really, scallops and mayonnaise. That seems like an abomination that shouldn't have been unleashed on potato chips or the snack eating population as a whole. Maybe I'm biased due to my hate of seafood though?

It's like eating chips but with the extra worry that you might get seafood related food poisoning! (not that there is raw seafood in them but I wouldn't be able to get away from that worry)

Also note, these are only the weirdest I could find on the fly, I'm sure there are tons more where that came from. Hell, the ones below it are Japanese Curry flavor.

Snacking, like a scene from Bonk's Adventure

Yesterday, while spending some time with some friends, I stopped by a convenience store to pick up some snacks and other food for the occasion. Of course, convenience stores are a plentiful source of stuff ranging from normal to soon to be gone because of it's bizarre quirkiness. Yesterday I ran into one of the latter.



The packaging, which is bright yellow and contains the picture of what appears to be a piece of cartoon meat taken from any of the various Bonk's Adventure games popular on the Turbografx 16 all those years ago (and let's face, not much was popular on the TG-16), is called "Mammoth Meat!?" (yes the punctuation is included in the name). The text above reads something like "A snack for a primitive experience".

However, even better than that, there is an actual disclaimer reading "This is a snack in the image of mammoth meat. The product contains no actual mammoth meat". As if people need to be reminded that mammoths became extinct somewhere around 4,500 years ago and there are no living mammoths for making snacks of.

The actual product looks like this:



This treat, frightening similar in appearance to a dog treat, actually tastes pretty good. I'd describe the flavor as a thin, crunchy mix between something vaguely meat flavored and a cheeze-it. The people I was with all gave it a thumbs up in terms of flavor, including one person who quickly declared it their new favorite snack. I can almost guarantee these will be gone in no time.