Pie No Mi パイの実

There are so many snacks unique to Japan, often with a western, but not quite feel.

Pie No Mi means 'fruit pie,' but strangely contains no fruit. I've seen this Lotte brand snack with chocolate filling and green tea filling in the past, but recently saw a 'Premium Cheese Cake' filling and thought it sounded nice to try.

For between 100-150 yen for a small box (one or two adult servings, depending on how snacky you feel, around 16 pieces), Pie No Mi is also available in bags of smaller packs (each pack a kid size serving).

The bite sized snack is made up of a crispy (margarine based) baked pie crust type outside with a bit of chocolate (or other flavored) cream inside. It's somewhat nostalgic, considering pie is not popular in Japan compared with the states.

The cheese flavor was super mild and barely noticeable unfortunately. I wasn't interested after eating around half and shared the rest of the box with my husband. (Note that the picture on the box is just to illustrate the flavor, there is no cheese cake inside each snack.)