Lemon, indeed

The verdict is in on C.C. Lemon. And it is: well, that's an hour or so of my life I'm not getting back.

Mitsuwa is actually right off the Kennedy in Arlington Heights (is it even still the Kennedy west of O'Hare? I-90, whatever), but because the Kennedy was so backed up at the Junction, I ended up taking local streets... woof. I got off at Caldwell and took 14 all the way to Golf, then took that west to Arlington Heights Rd. This took forever, as I'm sure you'd expect.

Mitsuwa itself is a bit funny. First of all, it's like a weird little enclave designed to recreate Japan for all the expatriates - it's not just a grocery, in other words. There's also a travel agency, video store, food court, wireless store, all in the same building. Second of all, there's a sign out front that instructs visitors not to take any pictures inside. I know the stereotype is that Japanese people all have cameras everywhere they go, but when even Japanese people are worried that other Japanese people will be taking pictures at the grocery store, that's quite the robust stereotype.

Anyway, I got some Pocky to bring back for Alma (because the last time I went to an Asian market, she asked me if I'd bought any), and then picked up a couple bottles of C.C. Lemon. I haven't been this underwhelmed by a lemon soda since... well, to be perfectly honest, just about any lemon soda that isn't Lift, Solo, or Club Lemon (that San Pellegrino Limonata is okay too, but the cans are too small). Among the problems here:

1. Not sweet enough. The nutrition facts actually say that there are just eight grams of sugar in the entire bottle, which can't possibly be right when there's no artificial sweetener either. On the other hand, I would totally believe it, because the soda really does just taste like weak lemonade mixed with club soda.

2. Not tart enough. When my coworker first mentioned it (along with the apparently non-existent tagline "Power of a Thousand Lemons," which is so cool that I'm sad that it's not real), he seemed to suggest that it was quite tart - aaaaand, 0 for 2.

3. Not cool enough. The bottle design is spare, and the tagline isn't even "the juice of 70 lemons in every bottle" - it's "the vitamin C of 70 lemons in every bottle." Boring! Also, I know lemons are fairly small, but the bottle only contains 200% of your vitamin C RDA - that's 70 lemons' worth?

In summary, kind of a waste of a trip - there's Club Lemon in Chicago, and for that matter there's Kool-Aid and seltzer, which certainly couldn't be any worse.