Marks and Spencer Taste Japan Mushroom Onigiri

Along with all kinds of new goodies, M&S are going big on their Taste range - an exotic collection of tastes from the East with a focus on Japan and Thailand. It's all 20% off at the moment so a good time to try some new things. Some of it is a return of products from last year but there's lots of new things as well. I went for these Mushroom Onigiri from Japan.

Onigiri are filled rice balls with a crispy panko crumb - in this case filled with shiitake and oyster mushroom (along with some straw and black cup mushroms). The product looks pretty authentic with sake, soy sauce, spring onions, ginger and yellow miso part of the Japanese inspired ingredients.

It's a well designed tray that protects each ball and keeps them seperate They cook in 12 mins in the oven and smelt good as they came out. The first nice surprise was that the outing was actually crispy. It was crumbly with a thick panko crunch and you could feel its fried texture even by cutting in.

Inside is a nice creamy, soft mushroom filling that is slightly gooey and pairs well with the soft rice and there's a nice crunch from chesnuts for a contrast in textures.

It's a pretty nice little nibble and would be good as part of a sharing table along with some other nibbles and some sauces to dip into. It has a nice rich umami flavour that isn't overly salty and the contrast between crisp crumb and gooeyish filling makes for a pleasant eat.

Price: £2.00 (£1.60 with current 20% off offer)
Bought at: Marks and Spencer
Nutrition per 100g: 199 calories, 6.4g fat, 1.1g sat fat, 2g sugars, 0.88g salt

Score: 7/10