Comfort (junk) food in Japan

Living in Japan for three years and then later on for 3 and 1.5 months in later visits, I've been able to adjust to the pace and being away from loved ones. Like many other people who are away from their homes, I was able to learn the language (at least the simple conversation aspect of it) and went around to explore places, some of which became my haunts during my stays. In fact, some of these haunts I still visit when I am able to travel to Japan especially those in Yokohama that I have come to be familiar and perhaps attached to. And so I have also developed a liking to Japanese food (I love Japanese food!) including sushi, sashimi, ramen and udon. Another thing I developed is a liking to certain food that we tend to classify as junk like the snacks one could buy at the supermarket or the neighborhood store. 

In a recent trip to Bangkok, I got reacquainted to some of these items as I browsed through a supermarket near our hotel to check out some snacks. Following are photos of some purchases I made at the supermarket. They never made the trip back to Manila... 

Items bought at a supermarket in Bangkok

One of our favorite snacks (junk) while living in Tokyo were packs of Karl by Meiji, a cheese flavored snack similar to the more well-known Cheetos or the Philippines' Chiz Curls.

I discovered Morinaga chocolates along the same time I sampled Meiji and Ghana. There are many variants including the basic Milk Chocolate and White Chocolate.  This is their dark chocolate variant that they label as "bitter chocolate," which tastes much like Meiji Black but is usually cheaper. I also enjoyed my morning hot chocolates from Morinaga, particularly during the colder months of Autumn, Winter and Spring (practically 75% of the year).

Pocky stick biscuits (or pretzels as what we have been accustomed to calling it) are quite popular in Japan and also has a number of variants including strawberry, white chocolate and almonds. The term Pocky sounds quite different (with a different meaning) when mentioned in the Philippines and so one wonders what comes to mind when encountering the dark chocolate variant that's called "Men's Pocky."

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