dagashi 2.0

regular readers might remember that we procured our first dagashi pack way back in july. wow, am i ever overdue in writing about dagashi 2.0!  

this packet came from a different online retailer and had a pretty good variety. two savories, seven sweets!

first up is kyabetsu tarō! i think this means "cabbage taro"? but there's no cabbage in it. there is also not any frog in it. or anyone named taro for that matter. whatever! they are DELICIOUS and slightly flecked with seaweed!

they are so good, in fact, that i caught leff trying to sneak some.

the good news is that we can get a large pack of these at uwajimaya!

also at uwajimaya UMAIBO! (that is where we got our 30 pack of the pizza flavored ones.) this was the third flavor of umaibo that we had tried and it remains my favorite to date. teriyaki!

honestly though, if you see umaibo, do yourself a favor and pick it up. you can't go wrong with these corn sticks.

if you know me, you KNOW i love candy cigarettes.  (remember the time leff and i went to wayne's candy in memphis and i bought TWO CASES of the blasted things?! haha, i do. fondly!) guess what guess what!! *this* dagashi pack had CANDY CIGS! and WHOA!! they were citrus flavored instead of chalky weird!

not gonna' lie to you, i pretty much ate that whole pack myself. which is why i wasn't upset that leff tried the grape sucker dipping thing.

i mean, it's similar to fun dip or lik-m-aid or what have you except no, not at all because this tasted good. the sucker was very faintly grape flavored and the sugar dip only intensified that taste.

there is no way that a north american candy company could produce something that subtle. trust me.

but on to kuppy ramune! the candy that looks so adorable you...feel sinister??

weird thing about kuppy ramune-- they taste like disappointing nothing chalk unless you bite them and then they are delightfully subtle fruit. so strange! i honestly hated them at first until i figured out how to eat them.

not so with the mini sours though! hells yes! another slightly citrus candy that is not too tart. leff found them to be a little bland though.

that's fine. he can hate the candy i love. whatever. (XD) it just means that he had the candy coated cola gum entirely to himself.

japanese gum, guys. the flavor is always so good and it lasts forever. not your 2 seconds of brilliance and then fade like fruit stripe and its ilk. no, this gum abides.

while we're still on the topic of gum, feast your eyes on this lovely packet of orange flavored stuff.

i mean, it was delicious. i also saw it at the checkout at uwajimaya so i'm kind of excited to pick up some more.

the last candy in our dagashi pack was "hollow ducks". you would think, if you have experience with certs or life savers, that these would be solid and last forever. alas, you would also be wrong (which you might have ascertained from the term "hollow ducks". how astute you are! XD)

to be honest, i don't remember much about these as far as flavor goes. they were similar to the kuppy ramune in that they made more sense once they were bitten. it was interesting that they just...dissolved once they were broken. nice surprise though.

so, yes! dagashi packs are still one of my favorite ways to kill a foggy, cold, dreadful pnw evening! i have a feeling that we might receive dagashi 3.0 as a holiday present in the very near future. if that is the case, i'll post about it as soon as we've eaten it. (dagshi 1.0 is still available to read here.)