Free Service – Go to Mister Donut!

Mister Donut is giving away 1 free NEW donut for the first 300 customers between 01 and 03/November at the shops across Japan!

The new flavor donut is made with rice flour (chewy texture mochi-mochi) coated with kinako, sweet soybean flour.  This donut will be sold from 04/Nov at shops after the campaign.

Yoshinoya, the largest chain of beef bowl restaurants in Japan, is also giving away 1 free egg for the customer who orders the new menu kimuchi kuppa. (until 08/Nov)  So cheap… 280 yen!  

onaka suita~… (I’m hungry~)

Eating Bread Everyday

I do eat rice too, of course, but, I’ve been hunting on bakeries here.  I love bread ( well, I love any food :p ) especially Japanese bread ♪

A photo from a cafe.  Going to a cafe with dad for breakfast on weekend is my routine

Normally Japanese bread loaves are sold thickly cut.  I love thick cut toast.  And, Japanese bread sold at supermarkets are somehow much tastier than those here… (to me)  There are many kinds, such as “chewy”, “double aged dough” etc  I love the chewy one (もっちり)

Here is my another favorite bread “melon-pan”.  You can buy it at most bakeries, supermarkets, convenience stores and other shops that sell bread in Japan.  You can guess how popular this bread is.

Melon-pan contains two different dough – the base is normal bread dough (sweetened) and the top is cookie dough.  It’s sweet bread and it tastes different depending on the bakery/brand.  Personally I like the cookie-part to be very crusty.  Some of them are pretty soft.

The reason why it’s called “melon-pan” is that the bread has patterns and it looks similar to a melon.  There is a character in Japanese cartoon called “melon-pan-na chan” too .

Beard Papa’s Cream Puffs

Beard Papa has been franchising in foreign countries (it may be in your home country too) for a while.  There used to be one Beard Papa’s shop in Centro Galleria in Perth few years ago, but it closed its door. Shame!

Being famous with the Yellow Signage and Papa’s face, Beard Papa is now known as the bakery of the “World’s Best Cream Puffs”.
Each day we bake choux pastry shells that are made up of two special layers. The inner layer is a choux pastry shell and the outer layer is a pie crust. This unique structure creates a light, crunchy shell.  They use handpicked vanilla beans from Madagascar, and their whipped custard cream takes 2 hours to prepare.

Once you are around the shop you can already smell the sweet custard

This is one of my favorite sweet in the world!  They’re selling sakura flavor for a limited time only.  Matcha and caramel are also nice

Club Harie

Taneya Group started its business in 1872, and now you can find its products across Japan, mostly at big department stores.  Taneya shops sell wa-gashi (Japanese sweets), and Club Harie sells you-gashi (Western sweets).  (I talked about Club Harie’s baumkuchen here)

As Taneya Group started from Shiga, there are many Taneya/Club Harie shops in around my house.  I went to Hikone city (15 minutes from my house) to go to its Hikone shop.  … there are 3 buildings; one is Club Harie, one is Taneya and another is cafe and museum. (these buildings are connected)  I went to the bakery to try their bagel!.

I knew they only sell bagels on weekends, so I went there on Saturday.  There are sooo many people, and only 2 bagels were left when I arrived.   They only had plain flavor.  I bought one, and tasted at home.

Again, pretty small.  As I opened the package film, I could feel the bagel was soft.  I squeezed the bagel with two fingers and the dough sprang back.  I had a bite, and it was really soft, moist and chewy.

I liked it!  I mean, I could taste the sweetness of the flour, and as I chewed the sweetness became more condensed.  The body was pretty light, and I think it’s quite different from an American style bagel.  Ummm… interesting!

Boulangerie Pommes de Terre

The other day I went to my favorite bakery called Pommes de Terre.  (not that famous one in Tokyo, this bakery is in Shiga :p )  My favorite at this shop is Mentaiko France (photo)!!! (>v<)/

This Mentaiko France has hard crust, and chewy body.  The mentaiko paste is seasoned with high quality butter and it is very yummy!  You can’t eat this if you like soft bread as this France-pan (baguette) is very very hard: sometimes it scratches your mouth.  I love hard bread!

… and, a happy surprise!  Their bagels just got out from the oven!  I asked the staff if I could buy them (as the bagels were still hot and couldn’t be placed in the display shelf yet), they said “ok” .

I bought a matcha bagel and a cheese bagel.  Nice and hot

As you can see, the bagel is pretty small.  Japanese bagels are about this size.  I had a bite on each bagel…

My feedback :  I thought their bagels were more like normal bread, not heavy and not really chewy.  I could taste butter in the dough. As a snack bread, it was really yummy ( good taste, sweetness and the texture) but I didn’t feel it was a bagel.

My time is running here (>0<)  I want to taste Japanese hard bagel while I’m here if I can!