Toppo – Grilled Sweet Potato

To describe my relationship with sweet potato candy/chocolates as tumultuous would be an understatement at this point. And yet, I keep coming back for more. Perhaps it’s that ever optimism that leads me to believe that this could end better than all the other things.

As with all other Toppo packs I’ve had, this comes with two pouches. I’ve so far experience two types, the skinny sticks that have about 12 per pouch, and the thicker ones that have about 7 each. The ratio of the thicker ones is what I tend to prefer, but I enjoy both of them thoroughly. The biggest selling point of these vs. something like Pocky is the mess factor – the chocolate being on the inside means even if it’s a hot day these won’t leave a huge mess on your fingers. Sometimes it’s the little things that really count.

These smell like a grilled sweet potato for sure – it’s got notes of toastiness, and a slightly burnt, caramel quality to it. Also it smells kind of like ginger too for some reason. While the taste isn’t very ginger like, it’s different from the typical sweet potato snacks I’ve had so far, which tend to taste like Play Doh. This tastes a tad more complex, and definitely reminds me of a grilled sweet potato. Like something that came out of a toaster or baking oven and still has steam on it. It still has enough of that artificial sweet potato quality that I don’t particularly enjoy, but not enough that I don’t see any redeeming qualities of it. The complexity of all the flavours do help to mitigate that children’s putty feel I get from it, and that’s actually a higher praise than you would imagine.

Being of the skinny stick style, these come in denominations of twelve. As such, these have a more even quality when it comes to chocolate versus cookie stick. While I do prefer the hefty big boy sticks, these are also great. The biscuit is firm enough to be not break into crumb oblivion when thrown around in the package, but not hard enough that it doesn’t give way to a nice snap when you bite it.

While I love the idea behind this, I still have a hard time enjoying sweet potato in most cases. This is one of those rare cases I could see myself giving a second try, but to say I enjoy it would still be a bit of a stretch. Maybe sweet potato and I are just fated to be enemies, that the stars willed it to be that we would never get along. Or maybe I have a long lost cousin or uncle that was killed by a sweet potato and I’ve unknowingly suppressed the memory from my mind.