Today I stopped by my favorite grocery store Hiruma right before lunch. I had sandwich fixins’ waiting at home, and I decided that my sandwich needed a chips chaser. I noticed this bag of looks-like-Cheetos and decided to give them a go.

My crack Japanese reading skills told me that these are made from corn, and cheese flavored. Also there’s a picture of cheesy fondue. Context clues!

I tried to get a more detailed translation from Google Translate. Instead I got the following.

Sigh.

A few more tries with Translate told me that it’s Rich Cheese flavor.

I ripped open the bag. They looked like Cheetos in shape, though the color was a slightly less-vivid-than-Cheetos shade of orange.  The crunchy texture was exactly the same. So far so good! Not so good was the flavor. As with an earlier tasting of Japanese Doritos, these tasted OK but oddly sweet.

Speaking of too-sweet/savory flavors in Japan, earlier today I spoke in front of Cy’s fifth grade class about why different countries eat different foods. We talked about one country’s food being modified to local tastes in another country, and the Indian and Chinese students in the class had plenty to say. They also commented that Japanese “spicy” wasn’t spicy at all, but strangely sweet. They didn’t actually say What the HELL–because they’re ten years old–but the exasperation was there. I was laughing.

So back to the Almost Cheetos! One part from the original that I didn’t miss: the orange-stained fingers.