Yummy Tokyo Treat Box

It’s been a while since I’ve talked about a subscription box on this site but I was curious about this one and I figured a few of you might have been as well.

Full disclosure, I actually received my Tokyo Treat Box for free. This isn’t going to change what I write about it but I think you should still know.

I received the January box and you have my horrible pictures right here as usual:

Sadly, I didn’t get any of those Demon Slayer Crunky bars that were in past boxes. I would have kept the packaging on there but I did receive plenty of tasty treats so yay.

From what I can tell, shipping was very fast and easy. I received notification that my box was shipped a day or so after filling out a questionnaire and a few days later, it was at my door. I know that a lot of subscription boxes have had shipping and supply issues in the past year or so but it doesn’t seem to be the case here.

First impression was that the box is really full. One of the reasons I have never ordered any type of treat box for myself is that I’m one of those people that immediately eats every easy tasty thing in the house. Like I’m finishing up the bag of chips in the car on the way home from the grocery store. I am not proud abo my lack of discipline but it’s not something I can deny.

So my solution to this has been to simply not buy treats for myself or at the very least, only buy very small amounts at the time. I,m vain and I like to keep my weight down not to mention that I can’t imagine that eating a month’s worth of treats in one evening would be very healthy. And so, I figured that a monthly subscription treat box would last approximately 2 hours at my place at most.

However, even with my best efforts, there was no way I could get through this box in an evening. In fact, I still haven’t tried everything but I have sampled most of it so I’ll give you a quick rundown.

Japanese snacks are pretty much always very well packaged. Which means you can easily store these or give away the things you might not like. As you can see from the pictures, most of them only have Japanese on the packaging but fortunately, Tokyo Treat gives us this useful pamphlet that describes each snack.

Actually, let me talk about the pamphlet a bit. This may sound silly to you but it really impressed me. Pretty much all boxes give you some type of leaflet that described what you got but this is a high-quality glossy paper, full-colour little book that not only describes each snack (in case your Japanese is a bit rusty), but it also gives you at a glance the common allergens that may be present in each treat, whether it is a vegetarian option or not and any other pertinent information, such as the specific active ingredients in energy drinks.

Moreover, certain snacks have extra pages that tell you about the history or customs related to that specific food and the last few pages of the book are fun facts about Japanese culture. And you read it from left to right for added authenticity.

I understand that this is just an extra that they throw in there for customer convenience but what can I say, I really liked it. I thought it was high quality and showed a lot of care for the clients.

Ok so for the threats I got. As you can see, I received an assortment of sweet and savoury snacks. I even got a pretty good-sized instant ramen bowl that can easily be a meal onto itself. Oh, and I got one of those jelly-making kits, where you mix the powders with water in a little mould to create your own candy. I’ve seen these all over YouTube and I’m looking forward to trying it for myself. If I was less greedy I would give it to some kids that would probably have a ball with this.

Like I said, I haven’t had the chance to try everything so this is not my final verdict however, of the things I have tried, I would say the Spot the Sour gum has been my least favourite so far. Now I know that it’s sort of a little game where only one of the sticks is going to be really sour but so far, the ones I have gotten have a really mild flavour that disappears pretty quickly. I like sour, so I had hoped they would all be a little sour at least. I will say the gum itself is really soft and fun to chew but the flavour disappears too quickly for me.

On the other hand, I really liked the milk coffee kit kats. I love kit kats and have tried many flavours but I hadn’t tried this one yet. It might be my favourite so far, along with the original milk chocolate. It’s like if a coffee crisp and a kit kat got fuzed together but in a perfect little snack size. I’m actually planning to keep them as desserts for Christmas dinner. We’re always too full for dessert anyway and this combines the touch of sweetness with the idea of a post-meal coffee. Perfect!

However, my favourite and this was a surprise, was the Taiyaki. This one was filled with custard instead of red bean paste and it took me by surprise. I audibly mmmmed when I took a bite. The outside is so soft, fluffy and moist. I was expecting either something a little tougher, like a packaged crepe or something, or more chemically like a twinky. No shade to twinkies, I love them! But this tasted like a fresh pancake and I don’t understand what type of black magic was involved to pull that off.

The outside shell is the perfect texture and just a tiny bit sweet, hardly at all, but the custard inside brings the dessert element and is light and creamy. I really loved this snack. I don,t know if the fresh-made versions are like this but if they are, I finally understand why it’s so popular. It was really yum!

So is it worth it?

The website tells me that the subscription price is between 32.50 and 37 USD a month depending on the type of subscription you get. So that’s like 40 – 50 CAD. And at first, I was like whoa, that’s a lot of money for snacks. Remember, I buy one fun-sized chip bag at the time.

But this said, I actually do use a meal plan and get the bulk of my food delivered. The only thing I shop for at the grocery store is snacks. And I’m pretty sure I spend more than that a month on them. If you add in the fact that I’m a dork and I just get more of a thrill eating Japanese snacks. I would have the convenience of getting these delivered and never having to leave the house again. And from the little bit of research I did do, these seem marginally healthier than my homegrown options (i.e., a bit less salt, a lot less sugar and a few fewer calories.. still not healthy, don’t get me wrong just better than my usual bag of chips).

To be honest, I’m probably going to get a least a few months’ worth of this box. I do think it’s worth it for me. And I would actually be psyched to get some anime themes packaging. Even the one snack I liked less I still liked and I’m going to finish, which is much more than I can say for the tons of random stuff I have gotten in boxes that either litter the bottom of some drawer somewhere or I ended up throwing away because no one wanted. In this case, I feel like even if I get one thing I absolutely don,t like, I can easily give it to someone else and it won’t get wasted.

I’m curious, have you ever tried Tokyo Treat or any type of treat box before? What was your experience? Are you curious about this one?