If you love fried chicken and you're visiting Japan, chances are you'll be interested in Japan's very own version, known as 唐揚げ karaage. It's a popular dish, served both in restaurants and izakaya gastropubs and at home in the kitchen.

For many karaage fans, the combination of crispy breading and juicy meat inside is the perfect combination. In fact, getting the breading really crispy is so popular that there are even special cooking tips to help you achieve it.

The love of crispy karaage breading is such in Japan that it has now given birth to a snack. We sighted this in our local convenience store recently, and had to try it.

TORI KARI piyo

TORI KARI piyo is karaage without the meat, skins only, breaded, fried and seasoned, and crumbled into bite-sized bits.

Made by 株式会社トリゼンフーズ Torizen Foods Co., Ltd., chicken product and byproduct specialists based in Hakata, Fukuoka Prefecture, トリカリpiyo (TORI KARI piyo) is made with the skins of highly-reputed 博多華味鳥 Hakata Hanamidori chickens and seasoned with マキシマム Maximum, a famous spice mix from neighboring Miyazaki Prefecture.

In order to compare, we cooked up some karaage first, to see how similar this snack was to crispy karaage breading.

They looked similar to karaage breading, although these were thicker since only the skins were separately breaded and fried. They smelled great too.

Time to dig in...

They were just as we imagined, very crispy and full of chicken flavor, with the Maximum spice mix adding a subtle savory accent.

These snacks would be perfect with mug of beer or a tall glass of lemon chu-hai. A bag will set you back 300 JPY plus tax.

For nutritional and other information, see their website here.