Cheddar crackers in Japan

January 7, 2012 5:00 AM

Does anyone know where to buy Cheds or Cheez-Its in Japan? Mail order is best but anything helps. I've had precious little luck finding anything on the domestic market good enough to qualify as a replacement.
posted by DoctorFedora to Food & Drink (13 answers total)

Maybe you could ask them?
posted by tumid dahlia at 5:07 AM on January 7, 2012

Best answer: FBC has a "personal importing" service that might work...
posted by KokuRyu at 5:12 AM on January 7, 2012

Response by poster: Hell, FBC has straight-up Cheez-Its. Hooray! Forever!
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:23 AM on January 7, 2012

Heh, well there you go. I searched FBC for both items but came up with nothing.
posted by KokuRyu at 5:26 AM on January 7, 2012

I remember back in the days before internet where the only tenuous connection with the world back home was a printed catalog from FBC.
posted by KokuRyu at 5:28 AM on January 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Yeah, I just typed "cheez" into the search bar on a whim. Success!
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:53 AM on January 7, 2012

FBC is pretty much your only bet. I tend to seek out any sort of store that carries foreign stuff (Kaldi Coffee, Seijo Ishii, Kitano Ace, Costco and the like), and I've sadly never once seen Cheez-its or their superior cousins, the elusive triscuit.
posted by Ghidorah at 6:47 AM on January 7, 2012

Best answer: If you get desperate it's really really easy to make your own (the cheese straws in this post taste a lot like Cheez-Its, and you can cut them in squares instead of strips), although that requires access to decent sharp cheddar, and I don't know if you have that there.
posted by rhiannonstone at 11:30 AM on January 7, 2012

Response by poster: Sharp cheddar is likewise lacking in this country. Japan's approach to "cheese" as a monolithic whole that is left to other countries to care about specifics mimics America's regard of fish in much the same way.
posted by DoctorFedora at 6:52 PM on January 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

Japan is home to Cheeza crackers. They are a bit expensive but they are amazingly good. If you haven't tried them yet I highly recommend you do so.

Cheeza comes in a couple of other flavours (Camembert, Smoked Cheese and Gorgonzola) but Cheddar is the best one.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 5:38 PM on January 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Seriously, Cheeza crackers are great. And it's not just me who thinks so:

"Cheeza crackers are the best cheese crackers I’ve ever eaten, and I can’t really imagine how anything will be better."

Imagine a Cheeze-it made like a double thick Wheat Thin and coated with cheese powder that contains 51% real cheese and you might have a good idea of what a Cheeza is. It’s extremely delicious no matter how you try to describe it.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 5:46 PM on January 8, 2012

Damn, considering they're my go to snack at work, I can't believe I forgot them. They seem to have discontinued the best flavor (Gorgonzola is the best, but cheddar is nice), they've since come out with a pretty decent four cheese variety. They're not cheap (190 for a small bag) but if you can find a decent okashi (candy/snack) shop, you can usually find them on sale.

They're what cheezits wish they could be when they grow up.
posted by Ghidorah at 5:52 PM on January 8, 2012

Response by poster: Frankly I find Cheeza crackers to be too good. Like, Cheez-its are addictive partially due to their clear and obvious badness.

But yeah, while pricy, cheddar Cheeza crackers are pretty good overall.
posted by DoctorFedora at 7:27 PM on January 9, 2012