As many of you may know, I'm a complete sucker for bizarre Japanese snack foods and their equally bizarre packaging. Take Gorira no hanakuso, a bean-based treat whose mascot is a cartoon gorilla. But until the other day I'd never encountered a Japanese snack designed to mimic pet food.Despite what the package indicates, Hamster's Lunch is not a meal for your furry friends, but rather a rice cracker. Each morsel is shaped like a sunflower seed, which a Japanese web site points out "is Hamster's favorite food." The site also contains these valuable words to the wise: " Attention: Please do not provide real hamsters with Himatane."
It makes no such warning about trying to feed said Himatane to any of the dozen cute hamster figurines contained in each package of Hamster's Lunch. Apparently this faux hamster chow has developed such a following online that one purveyor has run out. And just when I was about to complete my miniature hamster army with that twelfth figurine.
[via Boing Boing]
Just because I've gotten out of the big city to spend a week chilling out in Maine with my good buddy 
The other day I found this fish-based treat in the snack aisle of a Japanese market that just opened in my neighborhood. Gotta love the packaging. It might look like a bad-ass gang tattoo related to murdering someone, but I'm pretty sure the teardrop coming from the pepper-person's eye is supposed to indicate that the dried slices of kawahagi, or file fish, are so coated with red pepper that they cause watery eyes and spontaneous combustion. 
I don't know about you, but sugary roasted miniature crabs don't exactly spell party to me. I found this unique snack at a Japanese grocery store. Let's make one thing clear: These are actual crabs, complete with shells. They're not tiny crab-shaped candies or marzipan.
My friend the lovely Yukari Rymar took me shopping at the Japanese supermaker last week, and in addition to the okonomayaki which you'll learn all about in my next post, I bravely picked up an assortment of "dried fish snacks" on her assurance they were perfectly safe and that there was no "thing" one was supposed to remove before eating, such as the eye or "inner vein," an anxiety which had prevented me from buying them before. 
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