10/23/2012

Karaage-kun Hatena Aji / からあげクン ?味(ハテナアジ)

Karaage-kun is one of the famous product line of Lawson.
"Karaage" means fried chicken (からあげ、唐揚げ) and luckily Lawson uses white meat. (weeeee!)

Here's Karaage-kun's brief explanation.
5 pieces in a paper package, which has a blunt chicken face on it and looking at you straight.
Also, it's designed to have a lid to cover when you want to leave some chickens and have a space to set a tooth pick so that consumers can eat right after they buy it. (genius!)

Routine flavors are Regular, Red (spicy), and Cheese and all are 210 JPY. 
Lately they create limited flavors with some local products of Japan like yuzu, soy sauce, sweet and spicy sauce with sesame seeds, etc.
More, they collaborated with Amazing Spider-Man and produced "Triple Pepper."
Once in a while they have a campaign and they put extra one piece for the same price.

Let's get back to Karaage-kun Hatena Aji here once again.
"Karaage" is fried chicken as mentioned above.

"-kun" is sort of "Mr." but used for kids or among friends, mainly for males.
"Hatena" = a question mark "?"
"Aji" is taste and flavor.
So, Lawson launched a limited unknown-flavored Karaage-kun on October 16, 2012.
Even on the package it says "limited quantity" on the left top.
Karaage-kun and other fried snacks are placed in a showcase by the cashier.
When I looked at the shelf of Karaage-kun, it just says "Hatena Aji."
(I asked if I could take a photo in advance.)

I was curious if the cashier would know anything about the flavor and actually I asked, 
"Do you know what flavor it is for real?"
He responded, "Well, we all tried so we know. But... I think... it's, well, mmmm, you'll find out easily!"
I believed him and left Lawson with Karaage-kun.

Inside of the pack, chickens looked normal.
They seemed exactly the same as regular flavor.

Had a bite, but all I could see was pepper and some little yellow dots.
Tasted like cheese but "pepper & cheese" wouldn't a name.

Right side of the package asks, "Can you tell what flavor it is?"
This question is insane because I can't tell.
It was obviously peppery taste and flavor in it but I couldn't figure it out better.


On the left side, there's a tab and I can open it to see a hint kept underneath.
The red star says, "Open to find a hint!" so I didn't hesitate and saw inside.



Hint 5: Word origin of this dish is carbon/coal/charcoal.
No, it's not helping...

I had to search on twitter and internet what others say.
Some said it's carbonara and I looked through Wikipedia to see if the etymology of carbonara is carbon.
I looked at English and Japanese, and both mentioned it (however stories are totally different).

Hilarious review was Rocket News 24.
They said, "Here we go, it is ..... we don't know!"
The phrase just spoke for my thought.

Editors and writers went to Lawson and said, "Can we get carbonara flavor Karaage-kun?" 
Needless to say, the cashier got confused and a little bit panicked what to do.
The cashier came back and said, "Carbonara.... oh well... you meant 'Hatena Aji,' correct?" according to their site.
On the back, there's a letter of challenge from Karaage-kun.
"Hi everyone, did you get what flavor this is?
There's a hit on the package.
We give you 10 hints respectively.
Please go to campaign site if you find the flavor.
You'll be eligible to win Karaage-kun goods!"

If I had all the 10 hints, I may not be able to guess the flavor.

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