“Pocky’s gettin’ too big for its britches.”
There are phrases my Southern father used to say that still pop into my head at odd moments, and when my eye caught Glico’s new Dessert Pocky packaging, that’s the one that hopped to the fore. Dessert? Really? Pocky, to me, is the epitome of snack, especially Japanese snack, and is about as far removed from dessert as I could imagine. Angling into the ‘dessert space,’ a realm of cakes, pies, ice creams, mousses, and—gasp—Ferrero Rocher, seems ill-advised at best. Who, exactly, do they think they are?
Glico has included several upgrades to the standard Pocky routine to make the experience upper-class. Rather than the traditional chocolate flavors, or any of the radical flavor departures, Dessert Pocky comes in two forms: Double Chocolate, and Mont Blanc Chocolate. The boxes are the same size as regular Pocky boxes, but inside, the packaging is made to be seen. The Double Chocolate box is colored with a light, rusty brown, and the Mont Blanc a forest green. While I can’t imagine setting these out at a dinner table, they’re certainly designed to impress, and the effect is noticeable.
As pictured on the front, each ~¥220 box includes twelve sticks, separated into four individually-wrapped clear plastic packs. I should note, as a slight aside, that I find the packs very hard to open. They don’t have the slit cut into them like regular Pocky, and seem to be designed for scissors to open. Similarly distracting, the boxes do not ‘seal’ closed, unlike the regular boxes, but instead sit, heads agape, until all the sticks within are consumed and the box is broken down. These are possibly nitpicks, but I didn’t appreciate discovering either design choice.
Getting to the actual snack: what’s similar between both flavors is a thicker pretzel stick, probably twice the diameter of regular Pocky, and a nice, thick coating of Glico milk chocolate. Each are then wrapped in a swirly pattern particular to its type. These are substantial sticks, and the suggested portion size of only three sticks per serving is certainly recommended.
Double Chocolate, as the name suggested, is milk chocolate wrapped in the dark chocolate from Men’s Pocky. Mont Blanc is topped with a sweetened chestnut flavored cream, after the popular-in-Japan French dessert. Both are very delicious, taking advantage of a higher price to bring more chocolate, a thicker stick, and a much more rounded taste.
I must say that the dark chocolate is actually drowned out a bit by the milk chocolate in Double Chocolate, and the experience, is not much better than just eating Men’s Pocky, which is half the price and comes with more Pocky per box. Still, the sticks are very enjoyable, and anything that puts ‘double’ next to ‘chocolate’ is an A in my book. 4/5
But this leads us to the Mont Blanc, which is just absolutely stunning. The chestnut cream and chocolate blend together perfectly to make what is now my favorite chocolate pairing—step aside, strawberry. I would absolutely serve Mont Blanc Pocky as a dessert, most especially as a side dish to a bowl of ice cream or with a coffee. This is one Pocky that is, as I’m sure my dad would agree, perfectly sized to its pants. 5/5
Read Japanese Snack Reviews review of Mont Blanc Dessert Pocky, complete with old box design.
Buy Mont Blanc Dessert Pocky and Double Chocolate Dessert Pocky from J-List.
[...] mixes with the Look chocolate and the slight coffee flavor in a fantastic way. As discussed in a previous review, mont-blanc is a French dessert featuring chestnut paste. In these chocolates, the mont-blanc [...]