Take a Trip on the Light Side

Snow or Shine, Gun-Gun-Gurt Hits the Spot

Gun-Gun-Gurt.jpg

Name: Gun-Gun Gurt
Category: Non-Carbonated Yogurt Soft Drink
Ethnicity: Japanese
Brand: Calpis (Asahi)

Yogurt drinks are dime-a-dozen these days. It’s almost like you cannot have a Ready-to-Drink product line in Asia without a non-carbonated yogurt soft drink. And that’s really what Gun-Gun-Gurt is: a delicately sweet milky soft with a smooth tartness you’d find in a serving of commercial yogurt. Now, Japan’s Calpis (owned by Asahi) has put no major claims on the bottle designating this as a truly “healthy” probiotic drink. Yakult out of Korea is the king in this category. But I’m fine with this. I take probiotics every day so I’m not relying on this. But recently, I’m all about refreshment. This drink is so light you can’t help but love it. I love a drink that’s bright, mild and not too rich or creamy. It didn’t help that I tried GGG (Gun-Gun-Gurt) in the dead of winter. Still, I was surprise how much I love the flavor. It’s actually lower in calories and sugar compared to it's competitors. This drink is seriously tasty and will be your go-to drink during those hot summer days.

Rating: B+ (a great summer drink for refreshing your taste buds!)

Mets Cola: The Finest Diet Cola of All

Japan's Kirin Reinvents Diet Soda While Helping Keep Your Weight Down

Name: Mets Cola
Category: Soft Drink
Ethnicity: Japanese
Brand: Kirin

For decades, the delicious tooth-withering syrupy soda has always been accompanied by its "healthier" aspartame-ridden brother, diet soda. First Tab, then Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi, people started flocking to the somewhat tasty no-cal drink because it gave them caffeine without the calories. So it does make sense that paired with mesmerizing ad campaigns, diet soda, specifically, diet cola, would become massively popular in American. Currently, the beverage industry is satiated with dozens of popular diet sodas, guaranteed to give you a refreshing jolt while keeping the "S" word out of your diet. Not that I agree with diet soda being healthy, but Americans tend to add unnecessary sugar into almost every processed food made in the country; it's not the worst way to cut calories for the average American. Diet Cola has received a few updates over the past years but none that I would consider game-changers. That is, until I tasted Mets Cola. Japan's beverage giant Kirin created a carbonated diet cola that I believe is the finest of all the diet colas. I see Mets Cola as the Diet Coke lover's dream drink. The most important box this drink checks off is that it tastes almost exactly like Coca-Cola (to me the most critical goal of a diet cola taste). The taste is undeniably light and refreshing. The body tastes like a sophisticated herbal cola with a light finish and no nasty aspartame aftertaste. Each sip, I am not reminded of a synthetic laboratory soda but a real drink that tastes natural and purely delicious. As a diet coke drinker, I have found what I've been looking for for so long. Perhaps I've been drinking American diet sodas so long that I chose not to search for better tasting alternatives around the globe. But this Metz Cola is something else; it transcends the category in both taste and presentation. And I didn't even get to the best part...

Japan's premier beer maker Kirin has made the world's first health-conscious soda. Beside from keeping consumers cool, Mets Cola is scientifically designed to help you keep fat off. What allows for this is an added fiber supplement that makes it more difficult for your body to absorb fat molecules during mealtime.  Kirin has also vetted this beverage's functionality by backing it up through successful clinical research. From a marketing standpoint, Kirin successfully targeted and won over men in their thirties who love indulging in food and drink but fear putting on extra weight. Seems young Japanese men love a drink that can help keep up with late night jaunts at their local Izayaka.

With science and marketing on their size, Mets Cola wins huge in the battle for the best diet cola. Most importantly, Mets Cola has massive longevity because it has 10 calories and tastes like the real deal. It's not an easy beverage to find. But when you see it, DRINK UP!

Rating: A+ (This Drink is the Current King of Skinny Colas!)

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John Mazur

Ethnic food is a serious passion of mine. I have developed a brand new site that focuses on sampling, critiquing, and enjoying brand new foods and snacks from around the world. My mission is to show the world that global foods should be shared, experienced, and cherished by everyone. 

Cheese Pretz (Cho Umaboso)

Above and Beyond the Duty of "Cheese-Flavored Pretzel Stick"

Cheese Pretz-FOREIGN FEAST

Name: Cheese Pretz
Category: Pretzel
Ethnicity: Japanese
Brand: Glico

It's hard to sometimes break associations of foods with the places they originated from. Even as an intrepid food eater, I sometimes get weirded out when ethnic foods are taken out of context and appropriated into different cultures. Take pretzels for example. The traditional lye-treated pretzel we all know and love is a European-born doughy treat from the middle ages most famously perfected by the Germans. Though pretzels are sold and consumed throughout the world, they are typically not associated with Asian cuisines. Japanese snack generals Glico have decided to create a line of pretzel snacks and turn the pretzel world on its head. Well, that might be taking it a little too far. But I am very impressed. To me, PRETZ isn't a box of pretzel sticks. PRETZ turns boring old salt pretzels into flavorful works of art. They of course do not come close to the authenticity of hard, dried baked pretzels. But they do something else: they improve upon them. PRETZ sticks are seriously thin and come thirty to a box. The portion is important because it seems like they know I will be wanting many more of these as soon as I devour the first five sticks. These pretzel sticks are simply amazing. They're crunchy, delicate, and deep in savory flavor. Now just like pretzels aren't indigenous to Japan, neither is cheese. Well, butter and other dairy products are quite prevalent in northern Japan (Hokkaido) but elsewhere it's just not around. These pretzels are covered top to bottom in an absolutely delicious aged cheddar cheese flavor that I cannot get enough of. It goes beyond cheese too. Each bite gives something new notes to love: peppercorns, basil, soy sauce, Parmesan, complex saltiness. After each bite, I am reminded that these are really not similar at all to the cheese-covered pretzels I ate for most of my life. Then I realize that I don't care because PRETZ are so much more than your average pretzel snack. The crunch is perfect, the flavor is rich in profile and the size is just right for serious snacking. There are dozens of PRETZ flavors and I plan on trying them all with great zeal. I have Glico to thank for taking someone else's snack and making it more delicious and interesting than ever before. Thanks for the innovation!

Rating: A (Sophistication is a Cheese Dust Pretzel Stick)

Comment

John Mazur

Ethnic food is a serious passion of mine. I have developed a brand new site that focuses on sampling, critiquing, and enjoying brand new foods and snacks from around the world. My mission is to show the world that global foods should be shared, experienced, and cherished by everyone.