"Crunky" news and stories

You get can get crunked in the club, or so I've heard the tune goes. Am I dating myself by calling that hiphop jam a tune? Never mind the term du jour, in my jour it might've been quaaaysted.

These days you can get Crunky at a Japanese candy store or vending machine. I snagged one at a Japanese grocery in my native stamping grounds of Queens. My homegirl Sarah tells me that the oddly named snack is also available in Cali.

In addition to its namesake "Crunky" and several lines of Japanese the package bore the words "Walking Bar." This legend soon planted me in a sugary quandary. Had I copped a Red Bull in bar form, Japan's answer to the granola bar, or worse yet a PowerBar?

Much to my relief Crunky was neither a gummy protein-rich slab nor a caffeine-spiked snack. I tore open the wrapper and took a bite into a milk chocolate bar laden with crunchy bits of rice. Japanese confectioner Lotte has created a steroidal Nestle Crunch bar.

Despite the typo on the Nutrition Facts label I wasn't cranky at all after consuming the serving size. Truth be told, I wasn't crunky either.

LA's westside has quite a few Japanese markets. It's lucky for me since I can find many of the Asian ingredients I use for cooking without having to drive as far as Koreatown. The markets even carry kimchee! In fact, with the exception of some of the prepared bahn-chan, Japanese markets pretty much have everything I need.

That also includes entertainment, like the laugh I got when I saw the CRUNKY bar in the candy and snacks aisle. I have no idea how the Japanese companies come up with names for their candies. It can't be a translation from Japanese to English because what on earth does "crunky" mean? I'm sure it's some word mash-up of "crunchy" and "chunky," but I still wonder if the product marketing and development department at Lotte wasn't just jamming out to Li'l John rapping "crunk."