Baked Goods

Unfortunately, we don't have an oven, so I am largely at the mercy of the local bakeries when it comes to getting a baked-good fix. That turns out to work fine for the most part since the local bakeries are far more skilled than I am anyway.

Note how much cuter their baked goods are. That's a Totoro クリームパン (Cream Bread). He's made of delicious sweet bread with cream filling. They also do turtle shaped Melon Bread (which is a kind of sweet bread with a cookie coating that is cut into a square pattern. No melon is involved.

We also recently started frequenting the bagel place just down the street from our apartment. Bagels are still hard to come by in Japan. You can find them occasionally at bakeries, but they don't seem to be as popular as other bread products here. Dense breads in general seem to lose out in Japan. In any case, the lady down the street is making a heroic effort to spread bagel goodness to all. The only problem is that they really require work to eat. Her recipe results in a light weight bagel with a armor of rubber. My jaw hurts after eating one. So why do I keep eating them? Because they're DELICIOUS. She rolls local flavors into the middle of the bagel roll that are inspired. Today I had sesame sweet potato. I also like the pumpkin gratin and curry bean bagel. She has a lot of sweet bagels, too. Chocolate, maple, yuzu. All of them are delicious - you just have to psych yourself up for the work involved in eating one. If she could combine the amazing flavors with a better texture, these would be unbeatable bagels.

She has also recently added homemade old fashioned walnut donuts. Those are just awesome.

FInally, every Wednesday before swing dance I stop for a quick dinner at Vie de France - a local bakery chain. Like most shops in Japan, Vie de France has their regular favorites alongside seasonal specials. Some time at the beginning of winter, the seasonal special was a yuzu cream pastry. Yuzu is a kind of citrus that is popular this time of year. Its not at all unlike a lemon, but it has its own unique flavor. The pastry was a light yuzu flavored cake with cream in the middle. I love yuzu, so I thought I would try it. While eating this creation it suddenly occurred to me that this was a Twinkie. That realization led to a second epiphany: Twinkies must be lemon flavored cake. This had never occurred to me before. They were just yellow and tasted like Twinkies.

Honestly, knowing that Twinkies are lemon cake doesn't make them more appetizing. Knowing that my yuzu cake tasted like a twinkie? Also not appetizing. This is one yuzu creation I'll be passing on from now on.

Yuzu Pringles, however, are awesome.