Ego Japan Pancake

Boy, this looks promising!

The Attraction:
What's not to love!? Bright red packaging, the word "Japan" on it, waffles and chocolate. I think I don't even need to taste this to know it's a winner...

The Review
I was really excited about this. I've been seeing this on the shelves for awhile at the Asian grocer I go to, so it was only a matter of time I would succumb to temptation....so I finally did.

Each pancake is individually wrapped, which I've always appreciated, but what I did notice is that each pancake is harder than what I was expecting. I opened the package and sure enough, they are hard! I don't know why, but for some reason, I thought they would be softer. These guys have don't give at all. I take a bite and I could swear it crunched because it was so dang hard. After a few crunchy-filled bites, I also noticed that the chocolate cream flavor was like a mousse, but a very light mousse....like I can barely taste it mousse. This isn't panning out the way I was hoping it would...

Hmm...this is not what I had in mind...

This is rather shocking to me. Japanese treats tend to have a elegance to them. Even if you don't love the snack, there is almost always a degree of refinement with each product. If you just look at the photo above, that doesn't look very refined. Upon further inspection of the packaging, I discovered that these pancakes are made in Malaysia! Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle! Now it makes sense. I'm not sure if I was relieved it wasn't made in Japan (and their standards have dropped substantially) or that the packaging on the outside took advantage of using the word "Japan" on it.

Err...next snack please

The Sweet:

If you like crunchy, borderline hard cookies, you might find these OK. (I didn't)

The Bitter:
It's hard. Imagine a waffle cone you might get with a few scoops of ice cream. Now make that cone about twice, maybe triple the density and you have the outside of this pancake. Perhaps even like a really hard rice cake. The cream isn't any better as it doesn't convey much of a chocolate flavor.

Conclusion:
There isn't much of anything for me to like in this product; the texture is too hard and the cream doesn't have much flavor. I've never been so wrong about a product before in my life. Fortunately, as the old saying goes, there are plenty of other snacks in the sea.

Video of the Week
I know I posted a Conan video last week, but Conan recently visited Cuba and took in some culture, including a dance lesson. I just couldn't resist.

I want to take dance lessons here!