Black Thunder Tempura from Japanese udon chain is not a good partner for noodles

Famous chocolate bar gets fried up for Valentine’s Day, but it’s not exactly as great as they say.

If you’re looking to try a Japanese chocolate with a cult following in Japan, you can’t go past Yuraku Confectionery’s Black Thunder. Priced at 40 yen (US$0.26), this tiny, palm-sized chocolate can be found at shops around Japan, and it consistently ranks as one of the top sellers at Japanese convenience stores. Its immense popularity has spawned regional varieties, merchandise and even themed hotel rooms, and as the go-to chocolate for Valentine’s Day, it’s now in the spotlight again, with a brand new collaboration that’s got everyone talking.

On board for the collaboration is Hanamaru Udon, a Japanese noodle chain that’s just as famous for its tempura sides as it is for its Sanuki udon (a firm type of noodle that hails from Kagawa Prefecture). Now for a limited time, Hanamaru will be adding a new option to its fried sides for Valentine’s Day: Black Thunder Tempura.

▼ Hanamaru Udon

Hanamaru is confident that this new offering will be a treat for the taste buds, saying:

“Black Thunder Tempura sees Black Thunder being made into tempura, highlighting the chocolate’s sweetness and bittersweetness, and allowing you to enjoy its crunchy texture.

It’s surprisingly compatibile with Sanuki udon. Not only can you enjoy it as a dessert after eating udon, but it can also be taken out, so it’s a great Valentine’s Day gift.”

If you’re of the mindset that gifting a fried chocolate bar to your loved one isn’t the most romantic thing in the world, you could try and snag one of the chocolate bars being released to mark the collaboration, which Hanamaru is giving away free to the first 20 customers who order the Black Thunder Tempura at each participating outlet.

▼ Simply show the official Hanamaru udon app to staff and they’ll present you with a chocolate, subject to availability.

While Black Thunder is synonymous with Valentine’s Day for a lot of people, diehard fans like us are happy to have it any day of the week. So when we heard that the new Black Thunder Tempura was being released on 6 February, we hotfooted it down to Hanamaru’s Akasaka Hitotsugi-dori location, which is the only branch in Tokyo that sells it.

▼ There are only 30 available each day at 10 participating Hanamaru branches, so we were lucky to get our hands on it.

▼ At first glance, you might mistake this fried chocolate bar for a piece of fried chicken.

However, after taking it out of the bag and placing it on a plate, we could make out the Black Thunder silhouette, shrouded in Hanamaru’s crispy tempura batter.

Taking a bite, our taste buds were met with the sweet, familiar flavour of our beloved chocolate bar, with its characteristic cookie pieces providing a fantastic crunch that contrasted beautifully with the finer crispiness of the batter. The highlight, though, was the centre, which had melted into a fantastic gooey mess of chocolate that spread bittersweet flavours throughout the palate, leaving us salivating for more.

It was a textural sensation, and when we added it to a bowl of the chain’s Sanuki udon, we were able to appreciate the textures even further.

However, despite the chain saying the Black Thunder Tempura was a good partner for Sanuki udon, we had to disagree. The flavours did not meld well at all, and it was so bad we thought the chain was playing an April Fools’ Day prank on us.

▼ Japanese-style dashi soup and chocolate do not together.

So if you’re going to try the Black Thunder Tempura, we suggest you eat it on its own to fully enjoy the blend of crispy batter and gooey chocolate.

If the chocolates aren’t sold out, you’ll find them in the serve-yourself tempura section, in amongst the fried chicken and croquettes. At 100 yen each, they’re more expensive than the Black Thunder Tempura that debuted at a pop-up event space in Shinjuku last Valentine’s Day, but they’re even more delicious than we remembered, so we didn’t mind shelling out a bit more for them.

They’re only available for a very limited time, from 6-14 February, and only at the 10 branches listed below, so if you’d like to get a taste of them, you’ll want to get in early to avoid missing out!

● Aeon Mall Sapporo Hiraoka (Hokkaido Prefecture)
● Sendai E-beans (Miyagi)
● Akasaka Hitotsugi-dori (Tokyo)
● Tsurumi Eki-mae (Kanagawa)
● Aeon Mall Nagoya Dome-mae (Aichi)
● Senba Shinsaibashi (Osaka)
● Aeon Mall Ayagawa (Kagawa)
● Takamatsu Hyogomachi (Kagawa)
● Matsuyama Takehara (Ehime)
● Aeon Mall Nogata (Fukuoka)

Related: Hanamaru Udon location finder
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