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| A pretty picture away from all the people! |
So as promised onto Japanese desserts and drinks. First off I think I will start with desserts:
My first piece of advice for buying desserts in Japan would be to buy the lovely French desserts that are everywhere! The Japanese obsession with all things French extends to lovely French pastries and there are French patisseries everywhere. You most likely will not find French style desserts in normal Japanese restaurants but they are very easy to find. There are crepe stores on all the famous shopping and eating streets as well where you can get "French style"takeaway dessert crepes which are absolutely amazing. And the best place I found for French desserts was in the Osaka underground where there is an entire shopping mall and a food market. I bought some lovely French chocolates there and drooled over all the tarts and profiteroles and everything else French you can possibly imagine. Sadly I was too busy staring at the goings on around me to even think of taking a picture of the scene :( Fortunately I did find a picture of a crepe on the net that I could pilfer for you :)
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| I had a crepe very similar to this in Osaka underground - yum! |
Japanese desserts on the other hand.... well I think they are very much an acquired taste! I did try many, lots of them seem to be very similar though - a doughy outer layer which tastes like it needs a bit more cooking and then a somewhat interesting filling in different flavours. I tried ones with sweet potato filling, red bean paste filling, some bizarre chocolate custard filling. They come in different shapes and I think they are actually meant to be different things but they all taste very similar. This was the traditional Japanese style dessert that you can buy in the street stores pretty much everywhere. The dessert in restaurants was a different matter entirely. Actually most restaurants simply serve a small fruit platter or a single scoop of ice-cream as dessert. The fruit is quite expensive as I think all the fruit is imported into Japan. I did try green tea ice cream which was very nice. And with a few of our fancy meals that we had there were some interesting rice pudding/brulee type desserts like this one:
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| it looks very tasty but sadly it was not tasty at all! |
But onto the most important aspects - the drinks!!!
First of all Japanese green tea is served with pretty much everything and it is indeed an acquired taste. Unless you are interested in acquiring the taste of grass in boiling water I wouldn't recommend it. The sake on the other hand is a completely different matter!
Sake is absolutely delicious! It can be served hot or cold and is sold by the flask and you pour it into tiny little cups to drink. A flask holds about 300mL and quite frankly this is more than enough for one person - I found that it went straight to my head. I bought a lovely bottle of sake home with me:
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| Umeshu on the left and Sake on the right. Yum! |
The other drink that I definitely enjoyed was plume wine or umeshu as the Japanese call it. This can be served straight, on the rocks, with soda water or even in cocktails and it is absolutely delicious! As you can see a bought a lovely bottle of this home with me as well. The cocktail that plume wine is traditional served in has a lovely Japanese name which I can't remember but in English it is simply referred to as "Red" and apparently was very popular with servicemen stationed in Japan after the war. I honestly couldn't tell you what else is in this cocktail but it is absolutely divine!
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| "Red" |
1. Umeshu goes to your head quite quickly and makes everything seems absolutely hilarious
2. Try the sweet potato liqueur at your own risk!
Kampai everybody :)
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