What's the most important bit of a mushroom?
What if it's a chocolate mushroom?
Kinoko no Yama is one of Japan's most popular sweet and crunchy snacks, along with Takenoko no Sato - both made by Meiji. Kinoko (きのこ) means 'mushroom' (crunchy biscuit sticks with a chocolate top), and takenoko (たけのこ) means 'bamboo shoot' (crunchy bamboo shoot-shaped biscuits coated in chocolate).
New versions of both products go on sale all the time - seasonal flavours, collabs, etc. Sometimes they complement each other, and sometimes they promote the... healthy rivalry between Kinoko fans and Takenoko fans. As healthy as eating chocolate and biscuits can be, but let's not think about that...
In what feels like one-upmanship and a full-blown identity crisis at the same time, Kinoko's gone minimalist. Again.
Off with their mushroom heads. The latest version (limited edition for summer 2024) is just the crunchy biscuit sticks with added cocoa powder.
Back to my original question. What's the important bit of the mushroom? What makes a mushroom... a mushroom? If a mushroom loses its head, is it still a fungi? Or is it boring now?
I think that's why these sticks are cocoa flavoured, to make up for the distinct lack of anything on top. After all, this isn't the first experiment with the format - there was a plain biscuit version released last summer.
For that launch, Meiji said that the summer heat had melted the chocolate mushroom heads right off. For this choco (con)version, their excuse is that, without the mushroom heads, the sticks have gotten a tan.
What's next? Sunburnt strawberry? Swimsuit tan lines? We'll have to wait until next summer to find out.
Cocoa version
One upside, if you want to think positive, is that there are more sticks in the box now. Roughly 60, in fact.
Meiji has a bunch of serving suggestions for these: pour milk over them and eat like cereal, layer them in a parfait, dip them in yogurt, or stab them all into a tub of Super Cup vanilla ice cream.
So, you can easily guess which of those options I went with.
Obviously I couldn't get this to look as neat and pretty as the promo version. I needed the shot before the ice cream melted! Whoever spent time lining up 30 sticks neatly in the middle of the cup had the patience of a saint... and maybe less of an appetite.
I'm glad I chose this serving suggestion, even if it took a bit of work. These sticks go really well with vanilla ice cream. I used them as mini scoops.
The cocoa flavour's nice and rich, so they taste like mini chocolate cookies. Maybe a bit dry, if you eat a bunch of them without the ice cream. Or maybe it's that eating the whole box in one sitting was just a bad idea.
Verdict: 8/10. Yummy, but definitely boosted by ice cream.
Bonus review: salted chocolate version
Not long after the crunchy cocoa sticks came out, Meiji decided to go ahead and put the chocolate back - in the wrong place. In everywhere but the right place.
This time, the sticks are fully coated in a layer of salted chocolate.
This time, there were only about 20 sticks in the pack. A bit of a disappointment, on opening.
The coating's not bad - it isn't thin or patchy, and you can see the size difference between the 2 versions. Trying to dip these in vanilla ice cream would've been more of a challenge.
If you ask me, it isn't enough to completely justify cutting the portion size by 2/3. By half, maybe, I would've understood. I think Meiji's being stingy with their chocolate supply at this point.
As for that chocolate, not salty at all. That's something I don't usually complain about when I'm reviewing something sweet, unless it's meant to be 'salted chocolate' flavour. Y'know, like this is.
Things got melty pretty quickly while eating, as you'd expect. With nowhere near as many sticks to get through, it wasn't much of a problem. Gone in the blink of an eye (in the crunch of a stick).
Verdict: 7/10. Too many things in the wrong places, including definitely not enough sticks in the box.