Saturday, January 8, 2011

Le Lectier Kit Kat - Niigata Limited Edition

The Le Lectier Kit Kat is another example of how Japanese people like to randomly throw French phrases around. Although if you sound out the katakana next to it on the packaging you come out with "lu le ku chi e" which sounds nothing at all like French. Although to be fair my own French accent was mocked first in French class and later in France so I can't judge. Also I'm going to stop saying The Le Lectier Kit Kat because that's redundant n'est ce pas?

Anyway for those not in the know Le Lectier is a popular pear grown in Niigata making it a prime candidate for a regional limited edition. This one is not sold in the Nestle E-shop so the only way to get your hands on some is to make your way to Niigata or hope that napaJapan has some in stock. (I'm in Ohio so I got mine from napaJapan.) When it comes to fruit the pear is pretty near the bottom of the list of favorites and I never could get excited when we got pear halves with school lunch in Tahara but I tried not to let my pear hating ways get in the way of enjoying this Kit Kat.

Pear Kit Kat

Le Lectier Kit Kat has 69 calories and is made with white chocolate. Upon opening it there was a strong artificial pear smell. Fortunately the artificial only extended to the smell and not to the taste. This mini had a nice smooth pear flavor to it that was pretty tasty. It was concentrated in the chocolate but it was there in the wafers as well. It was very sweet but not sickening. I'm not a huge fan of white chocolate but this one was definitely better than some of the other incarnations. I can wholeheartedly recommend Le Lectier if you can get your hands on it. And if you've tried a real le lectier pear let me know if they're truly better than your standard pear. I'm curious.

Final Score: 8

6 comments:

  1. I grabbed a box of these in Niigata this weekend. Glad to read your review. I couldn't get past the blast of artificial pear smell and didn't even try it. Maybe I'll give one a nibble after all, if the taste is more subtle than the smell.

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  2. I just tried these tonight. I was turned off by the smell, too - to me it smelled like a weird kind of buttery pear fragrance, which I didn't think was appetizing at all. But actually, the flavor was really nice and not buttery at all. I think this one was a winner.

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  3. Not really an example of Japanese people just "randomly throwing French phrases around" as "Le Lectier" is a legitimate French pear variety. Would you rather the Japanese had made up some other name?

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