Ya Kun Kaya Toast & Kopi O Pocky Taste Test: Nice Or Not?

Purportedly the world’s first chocolate-coated biscuit sticks to be unveiled in 1966 under Japanese food conglomerate Glico, the beloved Pocky has gone on to unveil innovative flavours like Kyoho grape, sake and ‘rare cheese’. Its seasonal offerings vary regionally, and now, the Pocky x Ya Kun Kaya Toast & Kopi O Limited-Edition Set joins the list. The locally-inspired snack produced in collaboration with the kaya toast chain was created for this year’s Singapore Food Festival.

With these two distinctly Singaporean flavours enrobing the Pocky biscuits synonymous with our childhoods, we tried it to see how true it tastes to Ya Kun’s Kaya Toast and Kopi O.

Labelled a Singapore exclusive, the Pocky boxes each come branded with Ya Kun’s logo, just to reassure you they’ve got the real thing certified by the traditional breakfast masters themselves. The cleanly designed boxes are also stamped with photos of the iconic bread and cuppa.

Unlike the usual thin brown toast perfumed with a distinct kaya scent, this has none of those familiar eggy, coconutty jam notes. Also, it tastes of what seems like generic white chocolate with mostly coconut milk and barely any pandan mixed in. Expectedly, the ‘toast’ taste isn’t discernible. But it's still quite pleasant to eat if you think of it as a coconut-flavoured biscuit.

Upon ripping open the packet, we were immediately greeted by a strong coffee aroma. Interestingly, this tastes like it's coated with a layer of punchy Kopiko candy (that strong black coffee sweet), but softer and less sugary. And there's an equally off-putting flavour to it, reminiscent of coffee-flavoured cough syrup. After all, coffee powder makes up less than 1% of this snack and coffee-flavoured cream forms more than half of it.

Not bad! While the flavours can’t compare to the real thing, the Kaya Toast one is quite fun to munch on with its sweet coconut hint. We're less fond of the Kopi O Pocky as it reminds us of cheap coffee candy. We suggest munching on the Kaya Toast sticks first followed by the Kopi O (or none of the latter at all), so that the strong coffee taste doesn’t overwhelm the more muted kaya.

Available at STREAT (Singapore Food Festival’s signature event offering hawker/street fare together with live entertainment and culinary classes) and at all Ya Kun outlets from Jul 12, while stocks last. STREAT is on from Jul 12-13, 5-11pm, at The Promontory @Marina Bay, 11 Marina Blvd, S018940.

Photos: Pyron Tan, Laura Chia