Desserts in Tokyo!

Taiyaki

This was the taiyaki with chocolate filling that I had in Asakusa. So yummy! The street food in Tokyo is amazing! It was deliciously hot and gooey in the middle - such a great treat! I could eat a ton of these...

Cakes - Gâteaux de Voyage 

 We found the Gâteaux de Voyage store in the basement of Printemp's in Ginza. We thought the packages were adorable and the desserts looked delicious, so we grabbed one of each item that caught our fancy. Unfortunately, the baumkuchen was too small for us to get a real taste of it (we shared it between 3 people - so you can imagine we didn't quite get a full taste of it). In general, the cakes were nice, but they weren't super amazing like we expected.

The Madeleine was really delicious, but not enough for us to make a repeat trip back to the Gâteaux de Voyage on our 3 day Tokyo trip. 

Baumkuchen - Nenrinya

My favourite Japanese food experience (besides eating Shabu-Shabu in Kyoto and the sushi conveyor belt in Akihabara) is Baumkuchen in Ginza. The first bite of Nenrinya's original glazed Baumkuchen? OMG was it ever delicious. The cake was PERFECT - it was moist & sweet and just overall melt-in-your-mouth goodness. I originally thought it was strange that they made Baumkuchen since it is a dessert of German origin; but if anything, after this experience --> all I can say is that the Japanese really know how to take products from other countries and recreate & innovate it to make it amazing. I must say: the best Baumkuchen I've ever tried was at Nenrinya's - (and I've tried Baumkuchen since from KaDeWe in Berlin and Eitelbach in Toronto and both were super disappointing - the flavour and texture just couldn't compare to fresh baumkuchen in Tokyo). My next goal is to make the trip to Salzwedel in Germany to try the original from the birthplace of Baumkuchen. 

This was probably one of the best desserts I've ever had in my life - I would highly recommend this if you're ever in Tokyo. It's amazing - we loved the original glazed version better than the chocolate version, but both are memorable and worth every yen you spend in Tokyo.

Macarons - Ladurée

 Les Macarons from Ladurée's at Mitsukoshi department store in Ginza, Tokyo. The macarons were delicious! Chocolate, Pistachio, Liquorice, Caramel with salted butter - recipe perfect macarons: eggshell crust, soft texture inside and very true to the flavours. At the time, our reasoning for choosing the Ladurée macarons over the Pierre Hermés macarons was because there was a shorter line-up at the counter (Ladurée had the shorter line and nicer counter). After trying the Pierre Hermés macarons in Paris, I fell in love with the réglisse et violette macaron and for me - that is the macaron to beat --> absolutely amazing too (considering I really dislike the taste of liquorice) but Pierre Hermés really makes it work.

Delicious! Tokyo has an amazing selection of desserts that aren't sickly sweet and they really do take the best of other cultures and make the desserts their own!