Sweets and snacks in Japan: What’s so special?

Japan is known for its delicious and unique cuisine, and sweets and snacks are no exception. In line with other Japanese food items, snacks and sweets are made from high quality ingredients and a touch of creativity that make them stand out from the crowd. Some of them might be intimidating to try, but once you do, we guarantee that you’ll find them addicting!

Our pick: The top 10 snacks and sweets

10. Toppo

Toppo is a chocolate filled biscuit snack similar to Pocky. One striking difference, though, is that the chocolate is on the inside of the biscuit instead of on the outside, which means that on hot days you likely won’t need to deal with gooey chocolate and sticky fingers!

9. Nori senbei

Nori senbei – also known as seaweed rice crackers – is a popular snack made out of rice crackers, soy sauce, and seaweed. Oftentimes individually packaged and easily procured from your local convenience store or supermarket, nori senbei are perfect for those who want to enjoy a savory snack. A bonus plus? They go great with beer!

8. Black Thunder

Black Thunder is an affordable ensemble of dark cocoa cookie chunks and white biscuit pieces enveloped in a layer of dark chocolate. If you’re not a chocolate person, you could also try some regional varieties like strawberry, almond or matcha instead!

7. Sakeru Gumi

You might recognize sakeru gumi from the viral long-long man commercial saga in your social media, but sakeru gumi is legit. These gummy snacks are typically shaped into small rectangles and are pulled apart and eaten in thin strips. For total heathens, though, you can skip ripping them apart and bite straight into it – we won’t judge.

6. Cheese tara

What you thought was some sort of interesting cheese stick variety is actually a combination of cheese and codfish. But don’t let this put you off, because cheese tara goes perfectly with almost any alcoholic beverage you can think of. Our recommendation? Try it with some authentic honkaku shochu.

5. Tokyo Banana

Tokyo Banana is a banana-shaped sponge cake filled with real banana cream. In recent years, it’s possible to find Tokyo Banana in flavors like chocolate, honey banana, coffee and custard. The soft delicate texture combined with the creaminess of the filling is guaranteed to give you a food-gasm.

4. Cheese mochi puffs

These lighter-than-air, melt-in-your-mouth cheese puffs are absolutely addictive…you just can’t stop at one. Made from mochi rice cakes and cheese, this snack has a light and fluffy texture but melts away in your mouth like other popular corn puff snacks.

3. Sasha

Sasha is a unique kind of chocolate – two different types of chocolate are woven together to create a chocolate lattice. This creates a unique and delicious chocolate taste that you won’t find anywhere else. Besides the usual white and bitter chocolate flavors, you can also find matcha and strawberry variations.

2. Ebi senbei

Ebi senbei are simply shrimp crackers made from real shrimp. These snacks are delicious yet affordable at around 200 yen or so, but you can also find gourmet varieties available for around 1000 yen and upwards. There are also a range of flavors from ume, wasabi, curry and more, so it’s impossible to get tired of this snack.

1. Kinoko no Yama / Takenoko no Sato

Kinoko no Yama and Takenoko no Sato are two similar snacks that are known for their light and crispy texture and double layer of chocolate. While Kinoko no Yama is considered a biscuit snack and Takenoko no Sato is a cookie snack, these two are hugely popular, even to the point of starting a rivalry between the two snack fans.