00:03:00 John Daub: Greetings everybody! How do you do? In this episode, I'm going to be showing you this. This is maybe the most bizarre looking bottle of cola I've ever seen in my life. This is the Pepsi Zero Karaage Cola (カラアゲコーラ). And I don't know if it tastes like chicken or what, but we're going to open this up, put it in a glass, and we're going to try it with some chicken, which I happen to have right here. Check it out here. I have a bowl of this.

00:38:00 John Daub: So I want to start by explaining what it is. This is karaage chicken (唐揚げ，deep-fried marinated chicken). K-A-R-A-A-G-E is how we would spell it in English. These are deep fried pieces of Japanese chicken. The batter is very tasty. And if you've never had this before, this becomes maybe probably your favorite dish. Honestly, it is that good. I love karaage. This is served at our wedding for my mom, who loves karaage. Karaage is beloved by all who eat it.

01:08:00 John Daub: So I'm going to put this in the microwave really quickly. And we're going to open up this cola. We have to do the sniff test first here. Now, Pepsi has been doing very unusual drinks for a very long time. I have an archive of Japanese drinks in the basement. This is a sparkling wine, sparkling grape. It's supposed to be like champagne from Christmas about two years ago. Here's a clear lime. This is Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola doesn't innovate quite the same way as Pepsi. This is an apple Coke. It tasted pretty weird. This is the original clear Coke, which created a lot of crazy people.

01:55:00 John Daub: In fact, some people that have millions of views used my thumbnail in there. I think because it was so interesting. These weren't served... One thing to point out was these didn't come out of the Japanese vending machines. They didn't have any special Pepsi. This is an ume (梅，Japanese plum) flavored Pepsi. Pepsi is the one that comes out with the weirdest stuff. Some of their drinks include... We already have people in the chat who tried it before. Salty watermelon. They had the sakura flavor. They had cucumber-flavored Pepsi. That was about seven or eight years ago now. You could usually find them at Don Quijote, which is like a super savings store for 58 yen or 68 yen on sale because they weren't so popular domestically. But they're so weird that everybody wants to try them. Just like this.

02:50:00 John Daub: So, Kanae said it's not actually chicken flavor. It's not chicken flavor, right? Yeah, this is only for karaage cola. Oh, this is for karaage. Why would they do this? So they... Okay, I don't understand. So it's for karaage. Let's open this up. It is clear. It smells like regular Pepsi. It smells like normal Pepsi.

03:24:00 John Daub: What? I got a wine glass here. I'm not supposed to show you the kitchen. We're leaving for the US soon. It's kind of a disaster. All right, so this karaage Pepsi looks just like the clear Coke and all the other clear drinks. Interesting. See, WRX Turbo is in the house. All right, let's just give it a first initial try here. Itadakimasu (いただきます，let's eat). All right, it tastes like... Search your feelings. You know it to be true. It tastes like Pepsi. It's like a not as sweet version of Pepsi. It's bubbly. Not so sweet. It's like a fake sugar sweet. That's what I don't like. Like a chemical sugar. No chicken taste. A zero sugar taste, I guess.

04:45:00 John Daub: Now, Kanae said that it's best to eat... to take it with the karaage. This is karaage chicken. Now, we're gonna try it with karaage and see if it does make a difference. These karaage chicken are quite good. Look at this. Juicy, deep-fried karaage chicken. This is gonna be better than the drink. Oh, man. Karaage is so good.

06:10:00 John Daub: Here's my feedback. I don't understand why this Pepsi has pieces of chicken on the bottle here. It has no chicken flavor. It tastes like a weak Pepsi with a fake chemical sugar. Ronald wrote in here, dip it. Chris is probably right. A marketing ploy. But it's something fun, I guess. You know, think about it, alright? I think that what they were trying to do here, and this is all speculation, I don't know, is that they wanted to make a Pepsi that was not as sweet, that overpowered the taste of the karaage. I guess people in Japan were drinking Pepsi and eating karaage a lot. But this Pepsi was made specifically to go and pair well with karaage.

07:10:00 John Daub: Now, it's not super sweet. It's got like this not pleasing chemical taste. But you can't taste that when you're tasting the karaage. Tuataka writes in here, we have Starlight Coca-Cola, space flavor. What? Had to try. Space tastes like Pop Rocks. What? So the world is going crazy with these soft drinks. I guess they kind of have to. Japan doesn't drink a lot of sugary drinks. But this was made scientifically to pair well with deep fried chicken. And apparently, it's not bad, actually. The bubbles... You don't have to use cola. I think any carbonated drink breaks up the oils, because there is a lot of oils in the karaage deep fried chicken. So, cola does a pretty good job of doing that. But I prefer like almost Perrier or sparkling water or something without sugar.

08:31:00 John Daub: But this is so lightly sweetened and on its own, it tastes like garbage. But paired with karaage, I can see it's not as bad. And maybe that was the idea. Let's mask the taste of Pepsi, because it's not so popular here in Japan anyways. With karaage chicken. And then people will be happy. But I think you could pick up a bottle of carbonated water and you would have the karaage chicken flavor even more. I don't think you need that fake sweetness. But everybody's different. So, I kind of give you the benefit of the doubt. I think if you're in Japan, you should try it maybe. Just for fun. Breaks up the monotony of everyday life when you have something bizarre to come home to.

09:19:00 John Daub: These are on sale starting today. And as you can see, my review is not glowing. I'm just kidding. It is an honest review. It's 600ml bottle, which is more than half a liter, right? And it was 78 yen, which is about like 50 cents. I guess this is 50 cents at the supermarket. I'm guessing that they think it's not going to sell. I don't know why they sold it so cheap. Maybe because they want to get it to fly off the shelves. But apparently, it takes the oil and even sits here on the... And breaks down the oils from the karaage with a very light sweetness. It tastes like garbage. A glowing endorsement.

10:01:00 John Daub: Look, you know what? In defense of garbage, I've seen birds, rats, other animals that had no problem with eating the garbage. And I've even seen George Costanza go into garbage and pick out an eclair and he ate it. And actually, you know, I think that might be somewhat underrated, because if it's not been touched and it's still good, you know, I don't know. I wouldn't eat garbage. But I apparently drank something that might have tasted like it. But to be honest, I don't know what garbage tastes like because I've never eaten it. I just know what it smells like. And this doesn't smell like garbage. So... Yum. So there you have it. A glowing review.

10:47:00 John Daub: Luis writes in here, Pepsi, why? Pepsi does it because they are... Let's take the high road here. Pepsi is innovative, right? This is an ume flavored one. It's salty. I have a salty watermelon downstairs in the basement. That's almost 10 years old, I think. But it was red and it turned clear because it ate itself. I don't know why. It's in my archive. I have a Japan Soda archive going back 10 years. Kanae is not happy about it, my wife, because she says it takes up a lot of space. So she made me move it into a storage unit. There she is. She wants no part of this, by the way. You won't see her pop in here and try it. Kanae, you want some karaage Pepsi? She said she's okay. See? She won't even come in here.

11:39:00 John Daub: Nicholas is here. Hey! Will you review the 7-Eleven Hawaiian menu? We can see the signs every time a vlogger passes this door. Really? I haven't been to 7-Eleven in ages. Okay, you know what? Let's do that then. Over the course of the next week, I'll try to go into 7-Eleven and get some of the Hawaiian foods. That'd be very interesting, Nicholas. Thanks for bringing that to my attention. I know that Lawson's has Godiva Melon Pan (メロンパン，melon bread). So you have this amazing deep chocolate inside the Melon Pan. There's loads of things at the convenience stores. They're always innovating. And I love the collaborations between two companies that bring together mind-melting ideas.

12:24:00 John Daub: Right? You have these weird things. And now today we had this with Pepsi and a food that's beloved here in Japan by all kinds of people. And, you know, I've got nothing against it except that it does not taste that great on its own. But with karaage, it is not bad. I could learn to, if I was in deep space, right, and I had nowhere to go and I had only this, I would eat it and I would live. And that's good, right? That's pretty good.

12:55:00 John Daub: I'll take some questions here before we end this livestream. Hex writes in here, hello from Las Vegas. Can't wait till we visit Japan again. I can't wait till everybody comes as well. Paul S writes in here, karaage, thanks for the content, John. Hope to be back soon. Might investigate a guided tour. Hopefully it's a tiny bit of autonomy. I would hope so. More on that really soon because I'm getting more information from the Japanese news. I'm scouting it all out. I have a lot of things going on here. An episode, I believe we're going to release that tonight.

13:29:00 John Daub: Kaki writes in here, do you think I will be okay to book a trip by the end of October or start of November? It is all speculation, but I think it's going to be fine. Japan is taking these steps to open up, June 10th they opened up the process for tour groups to come in here and we're going to see some of them really soon. I'm on the lookout to see if I can talk to some of these people to see how autonomous it might be so you have an idea. But it's a test. It's a test group. I don't expect it to last long. I expect them to use these test groups to gather data and use that to make a determination on how many people and how to best do this because Japan just doesn't know. They want to keep the population safe and by doing these tests hopefully come up with some magic answers.

14:25:00 John Daub: Whether you agree with it or not, I kind of predicted this a year ago or six months ago. I don't know, a long time ago. And this is I told you if Japan opens up is it going to start off with tour groups that's going to start off with like tests and experiments but it's going to gradually open up in stages and I think by the end of summer we should have more indication so I'm guessing October is fine but again you know make sure you get insurance travel insurance because you don't want to have to not be able to come. Salty watermelon was a real thing and it was too sweet and has a bit of taste they have salty lychee which is I think they still sell this it's not a fizzy drink but they do sell this at some of the convenience stores it's pleasing in the summer because people want that saltiness I guess to replace the salts in their bodies if they're out outside all day but the reality is that most people are like an air conditioning and probably don't need the extra sodium I'll be honest with you but the salty watermelon Japanese will sometimes put some salt on it I guess some countries do this to tone down the flavor maybe of the sweetness I don't know.

15:29:00 John Daub: When I'm in India we have this drink that I really love whenever I go to India it's sparkling water and they put in lime juice in it and they put in some salt and the saltiness is really pleasing with that sourness of the lime just a little bit of salt I don't know I can't predict what Pepsi is gonna do next because it's so unpredictable and awesome right I guess if Pepsi didn't do stuff like this it really life would be boring here it wouldn't be Japan I guess you're not going to find these in vending machines you'll find them at convenience stores and supermarkets and probably Don Quijote.

16:19:00 John Daub: All right one last question here I read you also have to buy health insurance just in case you get yeah you have to have insurance when you come to Japan right now it's kind of a smart idea the country doesn't want to pay for it let's keep it on topic here one day I might even try the Apple Coke and the other weird stuff and this is the one that was about four years ago I did a live stream that was quite revolutionary back then uh so those joining us it tasted like really weak chemical tasting sweetness Pepsi that's clear but it complemented the karaage very well but I think any drink might complement karaage. It's just really oily, juicy, salty, and chickeny, which is awesome. Apple Coke is nice. Clear Coke was A. So we have some people who have actually tried these things, which is interesting. Or you could drink Coke and eat an apple, which is maybe healthier. That's a lot of sugar. Either way you go. Beer goes great with karaage. Exactly. A nice can of beer. Where's Mr. Das? Would go really well with this.

17:36:00 John Daub: Casey writes in here, I would like to eat some good karaage. That is the first thing. I like they have combinations with ramen. There's ramen in gyoza, and I've also seen ramen in karaage more and more. And oh my gosh, it's so good. Healthy? No, but it's so good. When we come back to Japan after being in the U.S. for a couple of weeks, probably we stop right off and get a bowl of ramen to cleanse our palates of America's American cheese and all the other stuff. Burgers. And pizza. And we fix it with a good ramen. But I'm looking forward to going to the U.S. We're less than a week away, really. One week away we'll be going to America. Ramen, karaage, beer equals Japanese heaven. Jimbo 386. You can put that on a t-shirt. That's a pretty good combo. Pretty good. It really is.

18:43:00 John Daub: Final thoughts and then I got to get to motorcycle school. I think this is pretty interesting to try. I like the fact that Pepsi is always innovating. I guess they have to because they own such a very small market share as a cola drink. Colas in general own a very small percentage of the beverage drinks in Japan. They're in the Coca-Cola vending machines in the corner, but there's only one or two of them. And the rest of the drinks are tea, coffee, and other really interesting drinks. And that is, I kind of like that. I prefer to get like a barley tea or green tea or sparkling water. I like to have those choices instead of sugary drinks. And Japanese don't like the sugary drinks. And Japanese like smaller sizes. So you'll see Coca-Colas in pet bottles of 200 milliliters. Because Japanese just want to taste a little bit of the sweetness. They don't need to have a liter of Coke. Like in a super big gulp would not work here. They just want a little bit of the sweetness. It's like a dessert to people. And that's what Coca-Cola is. It's like a dessert drink.

20:13:00 John Daub: Alright everybody, thank you so much. And I want to say thank you to Nicholas. Brought up a good idea to try some Hawaiian food at the 7-11. That's going to be a pretty interesting episode. I don't have any trips planned to go around Japan before I leave for the US. But I do have two episodes that I want to release before we leave. One of them should be tonight. And the next one should be a week later. Right before we get on the airplane I'll release this. It's the Yubari Melon Auction. Where I got a chance to get a press pass and go inside and see, try to understand why these melons are valued at $30,000. Which is crazy, right? Alright everybody, have a good day, have a good night. See you in the next livestream tomorrow. Until then. Have some karaage Pepsi. We can even do it like a 2001 Space Odyssey as it's slow motion going across your screen. Oh. I'm going to have to go. Oh, that's nice. Zero calories. Whoa, you can't say that about the karaage.