Lotte パイの実 (Pie)

When I was a kid I did not like pie, and similar to many things related to my childhood I have no explanation of why I refused to eat it. I remember when I branched out and had some chocolate pie, it was ok, but it didn’t convince me that pie was anything to be missed. I continued to branch out (and got over my additional dislike of baked fruit) and tried more and more pies, but they still didn’t do it for me. Really guys, what is the big deal about pie? What I didn’t realize is that my life, like many American lives, was saturated with pie and I did like it. Pie is real Americana and now that I live in Japan, I miss pie. It’s not that you can’t find it, and of course you can make it (if you have an oven), but like Japanese pizza, it’s just not the same.

I bought the chocolate パイの実 (painomi) in a fit of nostalgia and delirium, because the picture on the box basically screamed “I’m flakey and filled with chocolate, eat me and be a better person. I’ll also cure cancer, but only if you eat me.” The strawberry version was purchased with a level head, and came out for Japanese strawberry season in November. Both boxes are cute and remind me of vintage printed fabric, but the box is a little large for the number of cookies you actually get.

The chocolate and strawberry cookies look identical and are about an inch across. They are not made out of pie crust, unless you make your pie crust out of puff pastry. Each cookie is flakey and has a little hole where I’m guessing the filling was injected. The flavor of the cookie is the same as puff pastry; buttery, slightly sweet, and simple. I don’t think it’s anything special, but I also don’t think puff pastry by itself is anything noteworthy. The cookie does go stale in about a day if left to the elements, so keep extras sealed. I can only describe both fillings as blah. The chocolate tastes like chocolate, but it’s not rich, it’s not sweet and it’s not creamy. The strawberry was the same waxy consistency but tastes like fake strawberry.

Overall these cookies had nothing to do with pie, and were unremarkable. I did eventually finish both boxes. 2/5