Your ViewsKeep your e-mails pouring in, it's good to know that there are lots of you out there with views and opinions. To help you work out what is what, are now little icons to help you see biscuit related themes. And now you can see at a glance which are the most contested subjects via this graph (requires Flash 6.0 plugin). Please keep your mails coming in to nicey@nicecupofteaandasitdown.com | If you like, you can use this search thingy to find stuff that matches with any of the icons you pick, or use the fantastic free text search, Yay! | Your e-Mails |
Jamie Hargreaves
Lu Mikado Review |
Hey Mr Nicey,
Just a note to say that for those of you intrigued by the Pocky, there is no need to visit the Far East or indeed get Japanese friends to bring them over with them. At the weekend I spotted some in a local Chinese supermarket in Bristol. Only noticed them becasue I recognised their name from recently having read NCOTAASD. Jolly little things they are too, especially stirred/dunked in a cup of vending machine chocolate. My girlfriend was also very pleased that she could hold the pencil like biscuit without getting chocolate on her fingers. Mind you 'chocolate' is an ambiguous term when it comes to these little treats. Its certainly not Bournville.
I've just found a website on the side of my box of Pocky's. It's a funny looking, typically cutesy Eastern style, Flash website. It has tinkly music, so I had to turn it off as that sort of thing is not allowed in our office. Do you know, we aren't even allowed to use kettles? I think they don't trust us not to burn ourselves. Mind you, when I was a bit tipsy in a hotel once, I did manage to pour still bubbling water from a kettle over my hand. It really hurt and I had massive juicy blisters for a week, which as I was a waiter at the time was not very pleasant for the customers. But the flex on the kettle was unexpectedly short. Is that standard for hotels in your experience?
Jamie |
Nicey replies: Indeed many oriental type grocery stores sell them. It looks like yours were built by the Thai arm of Glico, the Japanese company behind Pocky. What did impress me the most were the ads for a product called Collon. Mmmm. Indeed they do look like little sections from the lower bowel. The Collon page on the Thai site is particularly off putting as it has small heaps of something next to the pieces of 'Collon'. I wonder why they haven't caught on here yet?
Oh yes Hotel kettles are their own entire sub species, a bit like those strange little Hobbit people they've been digging up in Indonesia only the're kettles.
|
| |
Lynn Pettersen
Lu Mikado Review |
Interesting to hear from Pete Moody about Pocky. Our friends brought some all the way home from Hong Kong for us to try out, not bad we thought, but we won't get any more until they go out there again. Then one day, sheltering from the rain on the way to Asda, I nipped into our little Chinese supermarket in Peterborough and there they were! Chocolate and strawberry varieties, and a savoury type as well. The strawberry ones smell like strawberry, but taste like those little white chocolate mice and leave a fuzzy coating on your tongue. Having said that, I prefer them to the chocolate ones.
My current biscuit craze came back with me from a visit to Holland - stroopwaffeln or syrup waffles - two thin crispy biscuits with a layer of toffee syrup between. They are hard and chewy at room temperature, but balance them over a hot cup of tea for 10-20 seconds and behold - soft and gloopy on the inside and still crunchy on the outside. When I finished the packet I brought home, I thought again that there would be no more until my next visit. Then again Peterborough does the business! We've had a continental street market, complete with a lovely Dutch lady selling syrup waffles.
People may say uncomplimentary things about Peterborough, but we seem to have an international biscuit trade here - I'm off to see what else I can find! |
| |
Pete Moody
Lu Mikado Review |
One of the few favourable things I remember about many nights in seedy Tokyo Karaoke bars was the insistence of the management to include bowls of Pocky on each table. Now the Japanese have an odd approach to tea (at least by my Western standards) which always seems to turn out green, maybe they don’t have the knack like we do, but no amount of green tea or Asahai/Kirin beer can do justice to the Pocky. The very idea of dunking a Pocky into a cold glass of beer is odd at the extreme even by Japanese standards. One simply must have a cup of tea with a good splash of milk in order to get the most from the experience and a possible chance to shut out the infernal din from people singing Beatles songs wrongly.
Now if anyone opened a Karaoke bar that sells a generous mug of PG tips (pyramid tea bags, of course) without Karaoke and kept filling up the Pocky regularly, I predict they would corner the ex-pat market and be millionaires in mere months.
Imagine my surprise when on a recent visit to the World showcase in Epcot Florida, the Japanese store sold Pocky. I spent a pleasant afternoon wandering around Epcot in the sunshine munching my way through a twin pack of Pocky. Lovely.
Regards
Pete (currently living in Milan where they have NO IDEA about tea without adding lemons and get rather obsessive about their coffee) |
| |
Michel Petit
Lu Mikado Review |
You LIKE Mikados ? How perverted can your tastebuds get ! Is is because they're (perhaps) not on sale in your country that you find them so good ? Personnally, I wouldn't be seen dead with a box of those in my carrier bag : I've tried them, believe me, and I think that's a Good Thing , because I don't have to experience that horrid taste of milk powder any more.
Now give me Scottish shortbread, hot cross buns, DIGESTIVE BISCUITS ! - any time !
A French Connoissur,
Michel Petit
|
Nicey replies: Well I like them sure, but I wouldn't rate them over a Digestive.
|
| |
Tony Raven
Lu Mikado Review |
The feedback you have on the Pocky/Mikado is slightly off. I have some packets of Pockys donated by Japanese friends when they visit. They are made by Ezaki Glico Co Ltd in Osaka, Japan and come in a wide variety of types. Current packs I have are Mousse Pocky in Strawberry or Green Tea flavours. You can find out about them at the Glico Website If stuck AltaVista will do a challenging translation for you.
|
| |
|
|
|