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We delight in the gastronomic treasures we found in the Hokkaido Umaimonokan lucky bag

Krista Rogers Jan 23, 2025
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This lucky bag was the perfect example of how the annual New Year’s deal can truly expand your horizons–not to mention, your soup skills.

As usual at the start of the year, we’ve been having a lot of fun opening all kinds of New Year’s lucky bags, from hard-to-get-your-hands-on ones from Starbucks to fun capsule toy mixes. The beauty of a quality lucky bag haul is that it will expose you to things that you might not normally purchase on your own, leading to some incredible hits or misses.

One particular lucky bag that we scored big from this year was by Hokkaido food specialty retailer Hokkaido Foodist’s Hokkaido Umaimonokan (“Delicious Things Store”). As lovers of all of the delicious food products that Japan’s largest and northernmost prefecture has to offer, we were incredibly excited to break this bag open.

▼ Hokkaido Umaimonokan’s 2025 lucky bag for 2,700 yen (US$17.30)

Here’s the full spread of things that were in the bag, which we’ll introduce one by one.

First, let’s take a look at the items that we half expected to find because they’re well-known specialties of Hokkaido.

Ganso Tokibi Chocolate (443 yen)

“Tokibi” is a local Hokkaido word for corn, which is one of the prefecture’s most famous crops. This enticing snack is made from corn puffs coated in white chocolate.

Hokkaido Melon Langue de Chat (700 yen)

Thin cookies encase a Hokkaido melon-flavored filling–a famous local fruit specialty.

Yumepirika Sembei (432 yen)

These rice crackers are made from Hokkaido’s premiere Yumepirika cultivar of rice.

Yakisoba Bento (249 yen)

This Hokkaido-limited stir-fried noodle bento also comes with consommé soup on the side.

Asahikawa Daikichi Ramen instant noodles in soft packaging (330 yen)

Taste the flavor of a famous ramen restaurant in the city of Asahikawa in the comfort of your home.

Kinoko Ohkoku Stick Nametake (enoki mushrooms cooked in soy sauce and other seasonings) (price unknown)

This pack from a popular mushroom retailer includes three kinds of handy mushroom rice toppings, including kombu, plain, and ume plum flavors.

Next, here were the delightful surprises that we didn’t see coming.

Kinoko Ohkoku dried shiitake mushrooms (1,080 yen)

We thought that we’d only receive snacks and other ready-to-eat foods in the lucky bag, so these dried shiitake were a pleasant surprise for us to enhance a home-cooked meal.

Hidaka kombu–50 grams (1.76 ounces) (864 yen)

Similarly, this kombu kelp from the city of Hidaka would be sure to elevate a dish to the next level.

In our excitement over the last two items, we immediately decided to test them out by making a kombu-based dashi broth with some mushrooms.

Just look at that broth color as a result of the specialty food products–it was exquisite!

We then took things a step further and also boiled some tofu in it. The resulting umami flavor packed a powerful punch, and we’re not sure that we can ever go back to eating soup without Hokkaido-cultivated kombu or mushrooms ever again.

On a final note, our favorite lucky bag item of the snack variety was the Yumepirika sembei. It was our first time trying them, and they were wonderfully crunchy and flavorful.

With the roaring success of this year’s Hokkaido Umaimonokan’s lucky bag, who knows–we might be inspired to take another trip to Hokkaido to eat our way through all of the delicious things in their land of origin. Luckily, it seems like a new sign in the local airport will even helpfully point us in the right direction.

Reference: Hokkaido Foodist’s Hokkaido Umaimonokan
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