Review: Pocky Panda Cookie & Cream
Purchased: August 2013
Best Before: January 2014
Review: September 2013
Website: http://pocky.jp/pokitomo/top.html
Website: http://pocky.jp/products/panda/index.html
Seriously, how can you not just want to buy that immediately? That Panda is amazing! It’s just an adorable panda!
Oh, and I guess there’s Pocky inside?
Packaging: As mentioned, PANDAS! The packaging is fantastic! It’s covered in cute pandas, including a really bold, simple design on the front. It’s got a great hand-drawn aesthetic, and the panda is actually Hugging a photographic image of the candy contained inside! While “Cookies & Cream” doesn’t appear anywhere on the packaging in English, it is fairly prominently written in Kana, and the photograph does look delicious.
Scent and Taste: It’s a pretty weak scent, just a little sweet with no ‘cream’ or ‘chocolate’. Mostly it just smells like Pocky, if you’ve ever had Pocky before.
The taste… doesn’t live up to how cute the panda is. I mean, it’s not bad, but I feel like my expectations were pretty high. The cookie/cracker that makes up the stick of the Pocky is pretty good, not too-sweet with a little bit of a cocoa touch, but only very little. The cookie and cream coating is sweeter, without much in the way of cream flavour or even really cookies. It’s just sort of… sweet coating. The coating and biscuit together balance out to a very edible snack, which is maybe the very definition of damning with faint praise?
My husband Andrew rather liked it though, for what it’s worth.
Verdict: Well, I ate the whole package, so points there, but I’ve got a sort of an oily aftertaste in my mouth, which isn’t very pleasant. It’s too bad, because I really want to buy these, they’re awesomely packaged and I generally enjoy Pocky, but the flavour on this one is just a total miss.
Sorry, Panda-kun.
But, hey, at least there’s a free cute wallpapers on their website! http://pocky.jp/game/wp/index.html#wp_pockypanda
