フランスパン工房

The French Bread Atelier chip is an odd little snack from Oyatsu, maker of many an interesting snack food. A very thin baked crouton - or is it? It seems more of a slurry poured into toast-round shapes, cleverly dyed around the edges to produce the illusion of crust, baked crisp. Nonetheless, it has the feel and taste of, for lack of a better descriptor, a French bread chip. There are two versions - one buttered, the other with butter and sugar. The butter/sugar chip (in the yellow plaid package) has a slight rancid butter overtone that finishes with a soupçon of sweetness. A bit like French toast in a chip. For their marketing they have transvestite torch singer (and ex-lover of Yukio Mishima), Akahiro Miwa as the spokesmodel, phoning it in in a series of commercials. Muro-san, as Miwa is also known, cashed in early on transgressiveness and has had a long career being the Milton Berle, or perhaps Flip Wilson, of Japan. Muro-san's chip commercials can be seen at this link - http://www.082.oyatsu.co.jp/product/french/tvcm.html

NV