Tokyo Banana

Ah, this one's a nostalgic treat for me.  I had my first Tokyo Banana almost a decade ago when my Japanese colleague came and brought this with him.  I absolutely loved this soft cake with banana cream filling. It's just like eating banana - shape and taste wise.

 

Nowadays Tokyo Banana has various filling flavours, like you can see from below :

Left - Original (banana cream filling); 

Middle - Cat pattern (caramel filling); 

Right - Giraffe pattern (banana caramel filling)

Each cakes is wrapped in individual plastic wrap.  The pattern ones has each animal printed on the packet. 

I once saw a Cheetah pattern on websites, but I couldn't find that one on my trip.

 

Shopping Tip :
It's not easy to find the pattern ones, so buy whenever you see them.  I bought the Cat & Giraffe at 2 different stores in Tokyo Station.  Don't expect to buy last minute at the airport, except the original which are available there.

Kit Kat

Another treats I brought home from Japan.  I bet you all know what these are... and only Japan has the most diverse Kit Kat flavours. 

Not all good, you know... some are weird ones (like Wasabi flavor), so I only bought what I know will taste good (Matcha is most favourite).  Although I did buy the Chili flav out of curiousity... thankfully it's very good.  You can feel the chili at the end of the bite, cutting the sweetness of chocolate.

From top left : blue (Rum Raisin); Pink (Sakura Matcha); Green (Uji Matcha); Yellow (Passion Fruit); Black (Dark Chocolate); Red (Chili Powder)

Tokyo Chocolate

Continuing on the food parade from Tokyo trip, this time I want to discuss the treats that we got to bring home.

This post was not to discuss chocolate made in Tokyo; although I do have to mention that despite Swiss chocolates are famous, I think chocolate made in Japan can easily be a rival.  What I love about Japanese chocolate they are not too sweet and no after-taste.

Anyway as you can see from the pics, these chocolate was from Tokyo Chocolate, which I bought at their counter at the basement of Isetan Shinjuku.  First of all, I just love the packaging - they are so cute!  Each box has different drawing of Tokyo's landmarks, ie Tokyo Station, The Sky Tree, etc.






















I bought 2 boxes - the first one was Strawberry Shortcake inspired chocolate, with girly pink colour.

And with Christmas around the corner (at the time), I absolutely must buy the Christmas edition (which featured Tokyo's landmarks inside Santa's boot, as pictured on top :-).  The Christmas edition is Orange Bergamot flavour - the chocolate had orange bits and even glitter on it!

Both were seriously good - I was eating them bit by bit, trying to savour it until the last crumb.


Tokyo Chocolate
Counter at Isetan Shinjuku
http://tokyo-chocolate.jp/

PAUL Boulangerie

Heard from my sis about a new eating place called Paul at Pacific Place - she said they had a bakery too and they had great reviews. Nowadays I'm in dessert funk since the Tokyo trip, so I thought to try some takeaways. 

Turned out that Paul was a cafe/patisserie from France.  The place at Pacific Place looked great and it was crowded on Friday afternoon.  Even the takeaway counter also have some people queued.

I chose their Eclair au cafe (crispy choux pastry filled with a coffee flavoured crème pâtissière); Eclair aux framboise (choux pastry with rapsberries and whipped cream - picture on top) and a chocolate cake/mousse that I don't know what's the name (the bill said "3 Choco Dessert").

The triple chocolate cake was good  (mind you, this was a modest review since I was never too fond of chocolate cake because of the sweetness). 
But I absolutely liked the eclairs - they're all very yummy.  The coffee one was interestingly different than any coffee-flavor-pastries; while the raspberry was just L-O-V-E.

Paul
Pacific Place Ground Floor - Jakarta
 

Taste of Tokyo Part 4 - Desserts!

I must have agreed with Tokyoites taste for desserts because many of my memorable food experience from this trip was the cakes, mousses and pastries. I love how they were not too sweet and felt light  in your mouth.
 
One of the best dessert experience was at L'Occitane Cafe (yes, the same shop that sells bath and body products).  It was located in one corner of Shibuya's landmark, which is the large intersection.  The place has 3 storeys : the ground floor is for the shop, while the cafe occupied second and third floor.

Enjoy your coffee while people-watching from the cafe's decorated window.

We ordered their dessert's set menu (again didn't know what they were, we just looked at the picture :-).  It turned out to be a good decisision because all the desserts were heavenly! Especially the Creme Brulee.

From top left : Cheesecake with Berries, Chocolate Mouse, Vanilla Fruit Cake and Creme Brulee.
 

~&~

Next were take-out dessert.. and these were from cake/dessert shop called Sembikiya at Tokyo Station.  I chose these two cakes because they're the shop's #1 and #2 best seller.

#1 bestseller was Strawberry Cheesecake; 

As for #2, first I thought it was cake/mouse topped with cherries, but it turned out to be chestnuts.  Interesting.

~&~

And finally, my sister's favourite... the simple, plastic wrapped cheesecake from depachika.  She said it was better than the one above, not to mentioned it's only half the price ~

Taste of Tokyo Part 3 - Disneyland Culinary Adventure

Okay, I exaggerated with the title and there's no actual "adventure" happened.  But we did have a pleasant culinary experience at Disneyland.

Well, when you are in "the happiest place on earth" you're bound to be happy about everything.  Anyway,I don't know whether it's the place's nuance or what, but I always satisfied with what I eat in Disneyland.

This Christmas Lunch Set sure looked prety and they tasted great, too.  I especially loved the dessert Strawberry Mouse.

 

Beef Pork Patties Lunch Set

My sis had the breaded prawn menu and I think that included mashed potato and salad?  I didn't bother to ask and was too consumend with my own plate heheh..

~&~

As for these snacks, they were so good we had to repeat queueing to buy them!

First time I had churros was in Tokyo Disneyland 4 years ago and loved it.  So of course I would come back to eat these.  And because it's Christmas time, they had special edition with Cranberry Sauce Dip.  Yumm!

Chocolate Churros with Cranberry Dip

However my highlight had to be these... Tipo Torta!!  It's pastry stick filled with flavoured cream and they sold it at the wagon in Fantasyland.  The pastry was crisp and the fillings creamy but not too sweet.

First we tried the strawberry and it was so good we keep want to eat it after it's long gone.  So we went back to buy some more and also tried the one with chocolate filling. It's equally good.
Now I'm sad because I want to eat it again.

Taste of Tokyo Part 2 - Takeaways

Now let's take a look at the food & snacks that we ate on the street or bought for take-aways. 

First, let's familiarized with Depachika.  What is it?  It's an area in a department store which sells food, which located on the basement floor ("depato" means department store, and "chika" means basement).  There are many many many (yes, that many) types of food sold here; from fresh produce, veggies, fruits until ready-to-eat bentos, sandwiches & salads.  You won't be run out of options!

Above picture was a sandwich/bento shelf from one of depachika in Roppongi.  It was a small selection, yet I was confused what to choose.  We just wanted a light dinner, so we opted to have salads and sandwich instead.

Potato & Pasta Salad.  I love how Japanese made their potato salad.  It's the best!

This is Katsu-sando, breaded cutlet sandwich

~&~

The next take-away was from Yazawa Meat Bento Box from Tokyo Station, where the hamburger made from A5 rank wagyu beef.  I'm a meat lover, so I was really curious and want to try this after reading the yummy review at Tokyo Eats.  And thanks to Tokyo Eats' direction, we can find this place easily inside the massive Tokyo Station.

The food plastic display at the counter.
Check-out the bottom display, the bento priced at 9,600 Yen! (about $90!)

And this was the actual burger meat that we got.

Pardon for the blur photo because we took the picture from our hotel room, where the lighting was minimal... plus I was in a hurry to eat the thing! :)

~&~

The followings were not actually take-aways... but more like snacks that we ate on the street.


These buns sold at Nakamise Street, near to Sensoji Temple Asakusa. 

The pink one was Ume (Plum) flavour, white was Plain and green one was Green Tea.  It tasted like fried mantao/buns - crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.  Good!

~&~

This was one of our must-eat list and we finally got it on our last night, when the shop was almost closed! (sometimes we were so dedicated to fulfil our list haha).  It's a bowl of freshly made french fries drizzled with Royce melted chocolate - from Calbee shop in Harajuku.

~&~

Roasted Chesnuts from food festival held at the end of Icho Namiki (Ginkgo Avenue) of Meiji Jingu Gaien Park. 

~&~

Chocolate Banana Crepe from Momi & Toys at Jiyugaoka.

Locations : Roppongi, Tokyo Station, Asakusa, Harajuku, Gingko Avenue & Jiyugaoka

Taste of Tokyo Part 1 - Japanese At Its Best

The followings are late posts.  Me and my sis visited Tokyo early this December and these are our food photo journals.

We actually had planned a list of foods we want to eat while in Tokyo.  But in the end we ate whatever we stumbled upon - Time is our enemy!!! (we only had 4 full days).  Even so, we had a great culinary experience, some were even the best of its kind I ever tried.

We'll start the Part 1 with the local dishes.  Chopsticks and fork ready, here we go!


Sushi at Tsukiji Fish Market

Whenever you read travel or culinary blog about Tokyo, eating sushi at Tsukiji Market is one of the top suggestions because this is THE place to get the freshest sushi in town, so obviously we had to put it on our list.

We had our sushi at Sushizanmai. We ordered the sushi set (honestly we didn't know what sushi included - we just saw the photos and choose :-).  My sister got a set of tuna varieties (3 types of fatty tuna as picture on above top left).  Mine was more various including salmon roe (above top right), sea urchin (above below left) and crab, flounder, tuna (above below right).

The fatty tunas are very good ~ ~ ~ best tuna I ever had.  My sis's set also include seared tuna, which was yumm.  I also love my salmon roe.  It's so fresh with a hint of lemon zest flavour.

Still walking around Tsukiji, we saw a small shop with many people queued.  Sis told me she read a food blog mentioned this place; they only sell Tamagoyaki (Japanese egg omelette) and they gave away samples, but you have to buy 1 slice (Yen 100).

I saw people were holding a plate of steaming eggs and it looked mouth-watering, especially in this cold weather.  So we went to queue to see what all the fuss was about :)  Well, luckily the queue was short so we can quickly tried.  The egg was tasty, but it was too sweet for my taste.

~&~

Ramen

A trip to Japan would not be complete without slurping a bowl of ramen.  Unfortunately we didn't experience much slurping this time (but next time we will.  Promise!!).

The only ramen I had was at Isetan Shinjuku (they have a restaurant on 7th floor).  Granted it wasn't a specialized ramen shop, but their Shio Ramen was good.  It was simple and the broth light but so flavourful.

Meanwhile my sis had a set menu of Soba and Chirashi-sushi (so colourful!).

~&~

Donburi

We had this Donburi (with extra udon) at a shop complex below the Nishi-kasai station.

This restaurant had order machine outside their shop, so you need to placed your order before come in.  I love this order machine - it certainly made life's easier to order food when you don't know Japanese.  It's very easy : insert the money, choose your menu and a ticket came out.  You give the ticket to the waiter inside the shop and she will prepare your lunch.  Itadakimasu!


Locations : Tsukiji Fish Market, Shinjuku & Nishi-kasai

Burgundy Dine & Wine

 

Burgundy outdoor decor - Wine Bottle Christmas Tree

We had a company meeting in Bandung and the EO chose Burgundy for our dinner place.   It was empty on Monday night, it was like we booked the whole place for ourselves.

We were sitting in the semi-outdoor (terrace) area where the lighting was rather dark - we barely saw the food but nevertheless they all taste sooo good :)

Appetizers & Soup

Left : Cassava Delight - fried cassave topped with oven baked mozzarella 

Top Right : Cream of Wild Mushroom and Fresh Herbs Soup

Bottom Right : Prawn Cigar served with lettuce and wasabi mayo

Left : Main Course - Salmon with Cream Dill Sauce

Right : Dessert - Crepe with Orange Sauce

Dessert : Apple Strudel

Burgundy Dine & Wine
Jl. Raya Maribaya no.163
Lembang - Bandung