Kit Kat Tourism: Muscat of Alexandria
Something very exciting happened the other week. My friend Chris Botman went to Japan - home of the most varied and dynamic selection of Kit Kats - and he brought me back the most crazy Kit Kat he could find. While most other Kit Kat flavours have pretty generic names like Mint Chocolate or White, the flavour Chris brought back for me is a very hilarious and specific flavour of grape. Not only is it muscat grape flavoured, but it’s muscat of Alexandria flavoured. Awesome. I can only hope this the start of a new era in Kit Kat flavours - Overripe Tomato of Lexington, Wisconsin or Crunchy all Natural Peanut Butter of My Fridge, perhaps?
I once had a grape flavoured gummy candy that was coated in milk chocolate, and it was about one of the 
Best Things Ever. I was hoping for a similar taste experience with Muscat of Alexandra. Sadly, Muscat of Alexandria is just grape flavoured white chocolate (which isn’t even real chocolate anyway). The Kit Kat came in two individually wrapped packages (two standard finger sized bars in each, pictured right), snuggly packed in a larger cardboard box (pictured above). This seems to be the standard with Japanese Kit Kats (the Japanse do love their pretty yet totally unnecessary packaging), whereas the ones in Australia and Canada are just one standard bar in one wrapper.
Now, I’m not usually a fan of Kit Kats that aren’t chocolate based. I like 
my Kit Kats with milk chocolate and caramel and/or some other delicious creme filling. However, I found the grape flavour refreshing (good for a hot day, when milk chocolate is too heavy) and rather realistic in the way that Jelly Bellys taste exactly like what you’d imagine the candy version of Pear or Peanut Butter would taste. However, I can’t really say that it tastes specifically like Muscat of Alexandria, which is supposed to have a sweet (check) and earthy taste (definately not check). Yes, I know this seems ridiculous to point out (we aren’t talking about wine here), but if you’re going to make a very specific flavour like this one, don’t forget the slight earthy flavour!
So, not my cup of tea (or… box of chocolates?), but definately worth trying once. If you love grape flavoured candy, you may just fall in love.
White Castle: Adventures in Food Safety
Every Canadian knows of a wonderful, magical place that can cure all your ills, and fill you in a way no other fast food restaurant can or wants to. It is a place worthy of an epic journey, a la Harold & Kumar.
“It” is White Castle.
Last month, I had the good fortune of spending a few days in beautiful Northern Kentucky, famously (mis)marketed as the South Side of Cincinnati (The mis-marketing is a topic for another time and place. Let’s leave it at: I’d never be happy living someplace that built its identity in relation to a bigger, better place. I know, I know, Canada… but here we are). It is also home to a vast array of liquor and tobacco shops, a “main strasse” (I don’t know why they pulled out the German there) and a White Castle. Read more
Kit Kat Tourism: Cookie Dough
Special guest blog by celebrity time traveling food blogger / jazz pianist extraordinaire David Fono
In the year 2008…
The world has only one chance
And only one Kit Kat
KIT KAT COOKIE DOUGH:
Cookie Dough & Caramel Layer over Crunchy Wafer Finger covered in Smooth Milk Chocolate
When Kate asked me if I wanted to a review a new Kit Kat flavour, I was initially suspicious. I know that Kate is quite fond of her esoteric Kit Kats, particularly when they’re in limited supply. Plus, having followed her long, tortuous journey through the warped world of Nestle’s imagination, I’ve long been suspicious of an eventual decline into the “regrettable” range of flavours: Decaying Flesh, Childhood Trauma, Poison. Fortunately, it just turns out we’re dealing with Cookie Dough here.
Unfortunately, things went a little awry before I had a chance to dig in. You see, the “first” half of the bar was purloined by Kate before I could sink my teeth into it. You know the half I’m talking about: the half with the initial bite, the bite that is pure chocolate. The bite that cleanses the palette, sets the chocolaty baseline in advance of the complex flavours to follow. Without this half, a meaningful reading of the complete experience is difficult to fathom. For all I know, half of the Cookie Dough chocolate bar could be covered in moss, or filled with rotten teeth. Maybe that sort of thing is big in Asia. You’ll have to ask Kate. In the meantime, all I can do is my best.
My initial impressions went something like this: There’s not much going on here. This is certainly one of the more conservative Kit Kat offerings; it’s quite a ways from the explicit, unabashed flavour of Mint or Strawberry. That doesn’t make it bad, mind you. When you think about it, Cookie Dough flavour is perhaps the logical zenith of the core Kit Kat trajectory; the Kit Kat, after all, is largely a cookie. So if you add more cookie-ness, are you really doing something new? Or are you just lifting the traditional offering to a new level? As a fan of the fundamental Kit Kat prototype, I’m not against this way of doing things. I’m enjoying this Cookie Dough Kit Kat — it feels like coming home to an old friend, who has just purchased a slightly larger house with a pool. It’s nice to hang out with my friend, but it’s even better when we have a pool.
However, upon passing the first draft of this review to my editor (Kate), she stormed over to my desk and demanded to know what kind of hack food journalist considers caramel and cookie dough uninteresting. I informed her that all Kit Kats had caramel, and she reminded me that I’m used to eating Kit Kat Caramels. It turns out she was right; and this is an important distinction. The Kit Kat Caramel represents a significant improvement over the basic Kit Kat model — in fact, may represent a local peak in candy bar evolution. To say that the Cookie Dough Kit Kat, then, is a minor improvement on the Caramel, is to say that it is a minor improvement on near-perfection.
There is, of course, the creaminess to speak of. The “cookie dough” in question here isn’t so much dough, as a dubious paste. To some, this may be off-putting. However, if you’re any sort of Kit Kat aficionado, you’re probably used to these sorts of shenanigans. The idea isn’t to focus on the individual textures, but on the gestalt; and the creaminess is, for the most part, lost in the familiar crunch of wafer and chocolate. You can tell it’s there, but it doesn’t interfere. It’s nice, but not *too* nice, like a creepy uncle.
As you can probably tell, I would recommend this chocolate bar. It’s nothing revolutionary. But if you want something revolutionary, why are you eating a Kit Kat? Kit Kats are about minor but solid variations on a consistent, underlying theme. In this respect, the Cookie Dough Kit Kat succeeds marvelously. I give it 8.5 Kits out of a possible Kat.
Weird Drinks: Cucumber Drink
Look! Cucumber flavoured drink (or green pumpkin, according to the ingredients list, the only thing in English). Awesome! I thought this was another exciting gem like the Basil Seed Drink from my local Korean food store (even though this one is made in Taiwan).
Or, at least that’s what I thought until I opened the can and took a sip. First warning that boredom would ensue: it was brown. This is never a good thing. I expected it to be clear or milky, like a cucumber. And maybe have some delicious bits of cucumber. Nope. Second warning: it was sweet! Since when is cucumber sweet? And not gross sweet, just boring plain old sweet. Like sugar mixed with burnt water. How do you burn water? I don’t know, but they figured out a way.
It’s so underwhelming, I can’t even think of a snappy line to end with.
UPDATE: R has kindly informed me that this is in fact winter melon flavour, not cucumber. I guess this could’ve made it even more exciting, since I’ve never tried winter melon, but it doesn’t change the fact that it still takes like burnt!
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