A Hit and A Miss - The Yogurt Flavored Sweet-Tarts No One Ever Asked For

Lemon Candies  - Asian Food Markets

I'm alive~! I took a short (unscheduled) break, but I'm back at it again with the Tuesday & Thursday food posts and today's pick is a double feature with two different flavor variations of the same candy. 

I picked these up during the great "Hoard everything 'cause Asian Food Market is closing forever," sale. Instead of the usual case of me being suckered in by pretty packaging, this time I was blinded by the fear of missing out. (Also known as FOMO but that sounds stupid.) I bought everything that I had never seen at other Asian markets, these candies included, and the results have been hit or miss. Mostly miss, if I'm being honest, but I regret nothing!

What's The Difference? - 3 Kinds of Apples

Pine Brand Apple Candy (3 Kinds) - Asian Food Market

Another item from my Asian Food Markets farewell-haul. (I miss them.) Last I heard, they were scouting new locations for a South Jersey store, but things have been pretty quiet. I hope for the best, but I fear that this might have been goodbye, for good. 

Contextually, this is easy to figure out. These are hard candies with different apple flavors, a pink, a red, and a gold. And since my hiatus, I still haven't learned to read Japanese, so we're going to be winging it a little in this one. I mean, I can tell it is three different varieties of apples, but I am not sure which ones and if these are region-specific.  Thanks to the almighty-Google, I was able to find this, which looks almost exactly the same, but the golden apple in the center (on the right) is replaced with a green one. Pretty sneaky, sis. I guess apple variety packs are this brand's thing? 

Since the top and bottom apple image are the same as the one found online, I can assume they are Johnathan Gold and Fuji. The gold is still a mystery, but I am going into this with some healthy skepticism. Will these actually taste any different? 

Blueberries, Butts & Bubblegum

Lotte Fruity Bubble Gum Dispensers - Asian Food Markets 

Sometimes it's the subtle things that win me over. Sure this has cool packaging, but one little detail is all it took for me to toss this into my cart. Notice anything different between these two flavors?  

On the right, we have little gum-ghosts blowing bubbles shaped like blueberries, which just so happens to match the flavor of the candy inside. The peach gum-ghosts? They're blowing normal balloon-shaped bubbles. Why is that? Because if they were blowing up peaches it'd look like they were blowing up pink-hued bubble-butts...or worse. Part of me wishes they hadn't of caught that (the evil part), but my graphic design background wants to commend their design-team and their foresight. 

As it turns out, everything about this packaging is incredibly thoughtful.