Yongfook is a web producer and usability consultant based in Tokyo

Ottotto is a snack from days gone by which remains vaguely popular today with people like me who are attracted to its bright coloured packaging and simple retro-chic charm and also to the fact that these chips come in a box. Japan seems to have only 2 main types of snack food vessel, one being the ordinary pull-open foil packet, and the other being a box which like this one opens on one entire side and can be found as packaging to all sorts of things such as individually wrapped chocolates, tiny individually wrapped cakes and digestive biscuits (also, infuriatingly, individually wrapped).

Oh god I’ve done it.

I…the raging beast within…

GRAAARHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HULK HATE FACT THAT JAPAN INDIVIDUALLY WRAP EVERYTHING. HULK WANT EAT MANY BISCUITS. HULK DON’T WANT EAT ONE BISCUIT, UNWRAP ANOTHER, EAT BISCUIT, UNWRAP ANOTHER. HULK NOT SQUIRREL EATING FRICKING NUT. HULK HULK. WHEN HULK RULE JAPAN HULK SMASH THIS KIND OF EATING CULTURE WITH GIANT METAPHORICAL FIST.

Back to Ottotto. Featuring a bright blue and red whale on the front wearing a sailors hat, the snack itself comes in a variety of fish shapes and has chosen to create confusion amongst the consumer who still has a vague grip on reality by not being fish flavoured in any way whatsoever. Thus with its 9 shapes such as whale, cuttlefish, starfish and octopus coupled with its very lightly salted flavour, it really becomes a kind of pandemonium of non sequiturs, laughing silently at whoever is dumb enough to be eating it.

Personally though I just really respect the way the manufacturers are bold enough to have pulled together such seemingly random imagery, called the product “ottotto” which is the Japanese equivalent of “oops” and put it on the market. Its basically like saying “I don’t know, we turned the fricking machine on and this is what came out now eat it”.

And eat it I shall.

Because Ottotto, you see, are really GOOD. This, as someone who really does love “good” food (the irony! I spotted it first), is odd to me as Ottotto is just a regular salted, reconstituted-potato snack, and saying such a thing tastes “really GOOD” is like saying “water tastes AWESOME” or “dude have a mouthful of this FLOUR, its the fricking BEST”. But somehow, possibly through some kind of whale-sailor-hat subconscious marketing scheme, the makers of Ottotto have managed to take totally plain and boring ingredients and turned it into something that I just have to keep shoveling into my mouth until I find myself sucking wistfully on the plastic inner-wrapping to cleanse off any last traces of the snack.

I can’t really pinpoint the appeal, but I think it is mostly to do with Ottotto’s lightness - each random little fish shape being a little puffed up cushion of wafer-thin potato, making them delightfully crunchy. This also means that unfortunately, in realistic terms each box doesn’t actually come with 9 varieties of fish shape, but maybe 5 or 6 varieties, with the rest of the volume being made up of a disappointing melee of smashed up bits of dolphin fin and broken turtle feet.

Another great thing about Ottotto is its versatility. In a closer step towards admitting that they really have no clue who for or why they are selling this product, the manufacturers include various “fun” recipes to try involving Ottotto in some way, written on the inside of the packaging. Most of them involve totally crushing the shit out of a pack and using the resulting shrapnel as a crispy batter for when you cook Real Food.

Appearance Fish-shaped puffed-up crispy potato snack. Extra bonus point for having a CTHULHU-shape as one of the varieties. Sure, a child might think it is a regular squid shape, but thats before the terrible visage of Cthulhu drives them insane from the inside out, merely by looking at it. Also features a cute whale shape. And a turtle spread-eagled as if smashed into the road by a passing Humvee. 4/5

Taste/Smell Ottotto pass my patented Beer Taste Test ™ with flying colours, a test that determines the functionality of a food product as a beer snack, using the following criteria: 1) must be easy to grab 2) must tastes good with beer As I have already said, I’m very fond of the taste of Ottotto. Its a kind of subtle, very lightly salted flavour that, like the snack itself, is non-committal bordering on confused as to what it is actually trying to be. This, I see as a good point, as Ottotto are just as home being thrust into my mouth in between swigs of delicious, cold beer, as they are being ground up and thrown in the eyes of dangerous animals, during survival situations. 4/5

Fear Factor The only possible fear associated with eating Ottotto might be the incorrect assumption that these are whale-flavoured. As someone who has eaten whale (tasted like chicken) (FROM THE DEPTHS OF HELL) this would most definitely be a reason to avoid accidentally putting these anywhere near my face at all costs. As such, they aren’t and thus fear is minimal. 1/5

Health Implications Not bad, for a potato snack. Ottotto are a “non-fried” good as stated on the pack, and are cooked using some kind of awesome convection laser gun, wielded by a giant gundam robot. Probably. 2/5

Final Rating: 4/5

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 2nd, 2005 at 6:02 pm and is filed under Food Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.