Chocorooms, Costco style

There are moments when living abroad makes you feel unexpectedly and delightfully five years old again. A few weekends ago, mine happened in the middle of Costco. I was cruising past the giant bags of chips and industrial sized Nutella when something made me stop so abruptly that the person behind me had to brake: Chocorooms. Actual, honest to goodness, mushroom shaped Japanese chocolate biscuits. In my American Costco.

As a Belgian, I should probably be ashamed to admit how excited I got. Belgian chocolate standards are a bit like Belgian traffic rules, strict, precise, and deeply ingrained. And let’s be honest, Chocorooms are not that kind of chocolate. They are not rich artisanal pralines with glossy shells and delicate ganache fillings. They are cheerful little snack mushrooms that taste like childhood and convenience stores and the promise of a long train ride with too many treats. And that is exactly why I love them.

Finding them here felt like discovering a tiny portal back to Japan in the middle of suburban California. I used to buy these all the time at konbini or toss them into baskets when friends came over. They are whimsical in that very Japanese way, a product that makes no attempt to look adult or sophisticated and instead leans fully into cuteness. The chocolate is sweet, the biscuit is crunchy, and the whole thing has the personality of a snack that wants to wave at you.

And because this is Costco, of course the box was absolutely massive. Not a polite handful of packets like you would find in Japan, but a towering family sized treasure chest with twenty four individual packs inside. Truly a commitment to joy.

What makes Chocorooms even more fun is that they come from a long line of imaginative Japanese sweets. Meiji, the company behind them, has been making playful shaped snacks for decades, including Kinoko no Yama versus Takenoko no Sato, a rivalry so intense it has inspired surveys, marketing campaigns and factions of loyal snack fans. Japan has a talent for turning even the simplest treats into stories, characters and debates. It is part of why wandering the snack aisle in Japan feels like attending a pop culture festival instead of grocery shopping.

So yes, the chocolate may not meet my internal chocolate criteria, but the joy of spotting that familiar Meiji logo at Costco absolutely did. I tossed the box into my cart with zero hesitation.

And when I opened it at home, that first sweet, slightly fake, undeniably fun mushroom bite tasted exactly like Japan, or at least the playful version of Japan that still lives in my pantry.