Meiji Takenoko no Sato Chocolate Biscuits

Takenoko no Sato — literally “Bamboo Shoot Village” — launched in 1979, four years after Kinoko no Yama, and has spent every year since engaged in one of Japanese popular culture’s most persistent debates.

The question of which is better has no correct answer, but the two are genuinely different snacks and the difference is worth understanding before picking a side.

Where Kinoko no Yama is built on a cracker — hard, dry, with a sharp snap — Takenoko no Sato uses a cookie base. Eggs, margarine, and almond paste go into the dough, producing something softer and richer, with a slightly crumbly texture that gives differently in the mouth.

The cookie carries more of the eating experience here than the biscuit does in Kinoko no Yama, which is the core of why Takenoko fans tend to be loyal in a way that feels personal.

The chocolate is the same two-layer approach — cacao mass on the outside, milk chocolate notes from the whole milk powder and cocoa butter underneath — molded into a small bamboo shoot shape that sits wide at the base and tapers upward.

Because the chocolate covers more surface area relative to the cookie than on Kinoko no Yama, each piece reads as slightly more chocolate-forward, with the cookie providing texture and body rather than competing for flavor.

The debate continues. This is the side worth being on.

About this item
Item Name : Takenoko No Sato
Brand : Meiji
Item Form : Semi-Chocolate
Number of Items : 63g (Box of 1)