Puku-Puku Tai "Choco"

Meito

For those unfamiliar with Japanese desserts, this candy treat is inspired from a traditional Japanese snack known as tai-yaki. Tai-yaki is a common cake found in many stores all over Japan, and I can assure you that although it looks like a fish, there is no fish flavours involved. While the basic principle of tai-yaki is honoured in this treat, it's really nothing like the original cake treat you'd find in Japan. I'm not really sure why they wouldn't make it exactly the same, since tai-yaki is simply a vanilla, red bean or chocolate cream filled cake shaped like a fish.

What we have with the Puku-puku Tai Choco is a fish made of wafer, filled with a bubbly chocolate filling. I guess this treat might hold up better for long term freezing, because cakes can get squished; however, if a Twinkie can survive, why can't tai-yaki cake? While the principle behind this snack isn't the same as its inspiration, it's still a workable concept. Wafers and chocolate generally go very well together, so in theory this treat should be fine. Unfortunately, with this treat, there’s a problem with the chocolate.

The problem with the chocolate comes from the lack of flavour. It has a nice smooth texture, with fun little bubbles, but virtually no flavour at all. This is a big problem since the wafer surrounding it has a very strong flavour. The wafer (similar to an ice cream cone) gives it a nice texture, but the wafer flavour completely overshadows the chocolate in flavour. So, what you have is a chocolate filled wafer that just tastes like wafer.

I attempted to sample a little of the chocolate on its own, and even then it was pretty weak. It seemed to taste OK, but even the aftertaste of the wafer overshadowed the flavour of the chocolate.