Entertaining the world’s children can be a massively lucrative endeavor, and frequently a very strange one—particularly in Japan. A company called Kracie has wildly complicated the process of consuming various foodstuffs, from gummi candy to ramen, by releasing DIY snack kits that require serious preparation before consumption. (Whatever keeps the kids busy, right?) The weirdest one we came across was the Happy Kitchen Mini Hamburger Shop Kit, whose package includes various powders and molds—and whose 20-minute prep time nets two tiny hamburgers, some fries, and a thimble full of soda. Everything starts in powder form, and requires drops of water and a microwave to complete. (Oh, and pretty much tastes like shit, but we’ll get to that in a minute.) Some of the tech guys here at AVHQ had already purchased and consumed one of these kits, so we wrangled developer Noah to help us out. He didn’t let us know how crappy these would taste—nor did he stop us from accidentally adding too much water to the “buns,” which didn’t help matters—but he was there to guide us through some of the mixing. If you’re still confused (we were), there’s a personality-free step-by-step video on YouTube, which for some reason has 3 million pageviews. Oh, and a bonus: We happened to have another Kracie kit sitting around the office, courtesy of box of random stuff we got from J-list a while back, featuring something strawberry-flavored and something lemon-lime-flavored. Your guess is as good as ours; all we know is that it burned when we ate it. Where to get it: First, accept the fact that you’re going to have to shell out for overseas shipping to experience the frustration and inevitable disappointment of Happy Kitchen DIY kits. Then, head over J-list for these and a bunch of other powdered snacks.
