This week I am still feeling a bit sad that my holiday is over.  As much as I’m getting back into the swing of everyday life, Japan was so amazing and I really wish I was still there! So I decided to ease my pain a bit, I would write a bit of a post about some of my time there. There are so many things that I want to write about which might help you if you ever decide to travel there. But I decided that I would start off my writing about my love of Japanese foods with dessert, because you know me!

The Japanese sure do love their sweets! It seemed like everywhere we went had sweets, and each city had its own signature one. They sold them in the train stations, in the grocery stores, in the department stores…just everywhere! It would have been rude not to try them, although I feel like I didn’t even begin to scratch the surface with the amount of options that were available. I guess I will just have to go back, what a shame…

Whether it was traditional sweets that weren’t too sugary and usually had red bean paste in them, or more western options on steroids that seemed to be all the rage, there was no shortage of things to try. Some of it was a little questionable, and I have to say that sometimes you really didn’t know what you were getting until you bit into it! But I think that was half of the fun! It is such a different culture to ours, and with the language barrier it often means you aren’t sure of what you are trying until you’ve bitten into it! This resulted in a couple of occasions where you thought you were getting custard and got bean paste, or something sweet turned out to be full of curry!

I had so much fun trying all the different sweets, so I decided, as an ode to the delicious Japanese sweets that I tried, that I would post a blog post with my favourite sweet from each place we visited. This way if you are planning a trip to Japan, you can give them a go too! There was so many to choose from, and so it’s hard to limit my choice to just one. But I’ll do my best!

Tokyo – Harajuku Crepes

We were in Tokyo three times so it’s hard to pin down my favourite sweet that I had there. With all the grocery stores, train stations and department stores on offer, it was really easy to try out a whole heap of different sweets. The sweets level in the Isetan department store in Shinjuku is definitely worth a visit if you want to check out a huge range of traditional sweets (they have a lot of testers too if you want to try before you buy). But I figured that when speaking about sweets, it was probably best to go to one of the most iconic Tokyo sweets.

I knew before I left that I had to tick of crepes in Harajuku. They are so well known, and have been a big part of the tourism to Harajuku for many years. It is just something you have to try. So I made sure that the first day that I was in Tokyo we made the trip and tried our first Harajuku crepes.

Harajuku itself is a crazy suburb with a mixture of awesome shops, alleyways and crazy shops and outfits. The main street of Harajuku is where you will find a strip of outrageous shops stocking basically every cat related item known to man, along with plenty of weird and wonderful restaurants. But it is also home to all the crepe shops that have become so famous, all of which are within 100 metres of one another.

It is really hard to make a decision as there are many different ones. We ended up going to Santa Monica crepes as it was opposite the sushi restaurant that we were at, and it looked awesome (although they all do). It is so hard to make a decision on one crepe, especially because they have all of them on display in their window. There are so many options: fruit, crème, brownie, cake, cheesecake. I’m not kidding, a lot of them legitimately had all of the above, including a giant slab of cake in the middle. How they manage to roll up a crepe with a piece of cake in their I’m not sure, but once you make your decision they deliver the crepe to you in a handy rolled up burrito type situation, which is perfect for eating on the go! Inside is a glorious happy mess of delicious ingredients which look pretty in the display but I am sure are mashed up into the tastiest crepe I’ve ever had.

Seriously, do yourself a favour and ditch the diet for one of these bad boys. They are something you just have to see to believe, and you can’t really half ass it. Go for the options filled with fruit and cake, you will not be disappointed! Unless you are my boyfriend and they forget to put your brownie in, but mine was awesome!

Osaka – Pablo Cheese Tarts

When we were in Osaka, we discovered the magic that is Japanese cheese tarts. They are sort of like a cheesecake with a little tart casing, but better. I don’t say that often, because I love cheesecake, but these cheese tarts were something else! They were deliciously gooey on the inside with a crusty top, and were just the right amount of sweet.

Just about the best cheese tarts I think you can buy were from Pablo. There were a few of these stores around Osaka, and we even found them in Akihabara in Tokyo. There always seemed to be a queue so you know they are going to be good! I felt bad for the people working there though because they all seemed to play the same theme song on repeat. But regardless, these cheese tarts were something else.

There were so many amazing flavours on offer, it is hard to pick one. Lucky when you buy 6 you get this amazing double decker box full of whichever flavours you want to try. We had plain, chocolate and matcha, and I can’t even say which one was my favourite! The plain was a classic flavour and an absolute must try, but the chocolate was delicious and rich, and the matcha was awesome too! I highly recommend giving these a try, as they were really were next level!

Naoshima – 7-11 ice creams

When we were in Naoshima, which is a small art island off Uno, we didn’t really try any specific sweets, so I figured this is a good time to highlight how amazing the ice creams are. There are so many convenience stores around Japan, and they are a million times better than the ones we have here. They sell all kinds of delicious meals, all for really cheap, and they are quite tasty! Anyone who says you can’t do Japan on the cheap hasn’t visited a 7-11, because the food there is out of control!

Throughout Japan we tended to finish our night off with a trip to the 7-11 for something sweet. They had so many different ice creams to try, you never felt like you had gotten them all! I really enjoyed trying all the different options, and even now I’m sad that I can’t have some of the amazing ice creams that I tried here!

Some of my favourites I really can’t remember the names of, but half of the fun is just randomly picking out one that looks good and giving it a go! There was this amazing Haagen-Dazs flavour which was called Japonaise, which was an interesting one to try because it had bean paste on the top. There were also these awesome mochi ball ones with ice cream in the centre which were delicious. In Naoshima I even found a Pablo ice cream which was super tasty!

If you are trying to save a bit of cash, but are a massive sweet tooth like me, 7-11 is your go to for trying all the delicious Japanese flavours and sweets. Seriously, check it out!

Hiroshima/Miyajima – Momiji Manju cakes

As soon as we arrived in the station at Hiroshima, there were advertisements everywhere for these little cakes, and I knew I had to try them. Momiji Manju cakes were invented in Miyajima, which is definitely worth a visit from Hiroshima. They are these little cakes that taste like pancakes, and have  a filling on the inside. Traditionally they have red bean paste, but you can get a whole heap of different flavours such as custard, chocolate and matcha.

When I was in Miyajima I was lucky enough to get to find heaps of places that were making them fresh. They have these amazing assembly line machines that press the cakes and make them up from scratch, which was very cool to watch. I have to tell you, momiji manju cakes fresh and still warm were one of my favourite things I ate in Japan. I don’t know what it was about them, they were just so delicious! I ended up buying a whole heap of different flavours, but the classic ones were probably my favourite, followed by the custard.

I bought so many of these, and they really came in handy on days where we were travelling and needed a snack. I knew I had to eat them before coming home, but I really wish I could get some here. Luckily Kit Kat got on the bandwagon and made some momiji manju kit kats that I bought to bring back with me. I think I’ll have to try and make those last!

These cakes are definitely worth a try if you go to this area. They are really well known for this cake, so it is sort of like going to a tourist attraction, but you get to eat cakes.

Kyoto – Yatsuhashi

Kyoto just seemed to have so many sweets. I don’t know whether it is because it was quite touristy in the area we were staying, but they just seemed to be next level with their desserts. We saw some amazing things, like green tea ice cream on every corner, but also some questionable things, like an ice cream sundae with crumbed pork cutlets in it (I can’t even begin on this one…). There were a lot of sweets to try that seemed to be specific to Kyoto, however one of our favourites that we kept going back for was Yatsuhashi. These were cookies that were sort of a rectangular cookie bent into an arch. They were quite thin but super crispy, and had a really strong cinnamon sugar flavour.

These cookies I discovered on our first day, and after that we were hooked. I think it was because they were so crunchy, which was quite different from the bulk of other Japanese sweets that tend to be quite gelatinous. We got a couple of different types, as there were a lot of different flavours, but I think the best is the original. How can you beat a crunchy cinnamon sugar cookie?

Unfortunately I don’t have a photo of these amazing cookies, but below you can see how they put them in their Sundaes! So delicious and perfect for scooping out your ice cream with instead of a spoon!

You can find these cookies pretty much everywhere, including stuck into a lot of the ice creams they sell there. But do yourself a favour and get a pack either from the Nishiki markets or from one of the actual sweet stores. Not only are they cheaper, they were by far the best!

Nara – Black Sesame Ice Cream

My partner opened my eyes to the magic that is black sesame ice cream. He was absolutely obsessed, so everywhere we went we had to try these. We first had it in Kyoto, but my most memorable experience was in Nara. We were well past lunch and walking through a park, and I remember being so hungry. Low and behold, we found a little store that sold black sesame ice cream. I don’t know if it was because I was hungry, but this one was probably my favourite that I tried.

There is quite a variety of black sesame ice cream. Some of them don’t really taste like sesame, and some taste so much like sesame that they weren’t even sweet. I think the best ones were the ones that were a good mix of both.

These are the perfect sweet on the go, especially if you aren’t a huge matcha fan. They are nice and cheap, but super delicious. I only wish this was something you could get easily in Australia, because I was hooked on the sesame flavour!

Takayama – Mitarashi Dango

On our second day in Takayama, which is a beautiful traditional town outside of Tokyo, it was absolutely pouring. It was lucky that we had gone around the first day and checked out the main old streets and the sake breweries, because it was a miserable day. It was also freezing because of the rain, and probably the first day that the weather really started to turn on the trip. Don’t be disheartened by this recollection of Takayama, it is a beautiful place to visit and I would highly recommend it. But you get the picture, we were cold and wet.

We saw a few of these sold around Japan, so they aren’t unique to Takayama. But I do remember being ecstatic when I had one of these in Takayama. Mitarashi Dango are basically mochi balls on a skewer that have been covered in sweet soy sauce. Sounds a little interesting, but trust me, these are worth a try. They are the perfect warm treat when you are feeling a bit peckish. They aren’t super sweet which I liked because they had this real subtle sweetness to them.

In Takayama they have all these stalls where you can buys these fresh off the grill, and they are really cheap, so this ends up being a great place to try them. These are the kind of thing you need to try once if you are in Japan. My partner didn’t like them, but I loved how gelatinous the mochi was and how the sweet soy sauce became almost a caramel around them. So tasty!

Hakone/Mount Fuji – Wine Pies

It turns out that it takes a long time and is quite complicated to travel between Hakone and Mount Fuji. We actually had a lot of difficulty getting between, and it meant that we didn’t have a lot of time in either place because we had to take a few really long bus rides! The day we were going to Mount Fuji, once we had done sightseeing around Hakone, we realised we weren’t going to have time for lunch, which always creates a moment of panic for me. We had to be on a bus for over an hour, and then connect with another bus, which we almost missed. If we hadn’t been so late on the first bus, we would have had time for food. Alas, we had to run for the bus, which meant that we didn’t get to eat until we reached the hotel.

As you can imagine, when we got to the hotel, I was ravenous and quite hangry. There wasn’t a 7-11 in sight and so I couldn’t even get a snack! But we were asked to sit down in the lobby, and then pointed to the refreshment table. It was there that I found wine pies. I loved these so much that I didn’t have a chance to take a photo of them, but you can look them up online!

I don’t think my love of wine pies was just because I was hungry, because we stashed a whole heap of these because they tasted so good, and the following day I found them just as tasty. In that moment though, when I was starving, these were like God’s gift to man. They were a flaky almost pastry like casing for something that seemed like it might have been bean paste, but tasted a lot sweeter. I actually have no idea what was in these things, but I know it wasn’t wine. I think they were just called this because Mount Fuji seems to have an obsession with wine flavoured things, which generally just means it tastes like grape fanta (probably says something about the wine from the area too).

After looking this up on Google, I’m told that they do have wine in them, but I really beg to differ. Regardless, these things were amazing! If you are in Mount Fuji, do yourself a favour and give these a go, you won’t be disappointed!

And that’s my rap up of the sweets. Writing this has made me equally hungry and depressed that my holiday is over. There was so much delicious food that we tried, and with all the sweets we ate, I’m surprised I didn’t come back the size of a house!

Japanese sweets are great because they are really different to everything we have here, and are also different everywhere that you go. It’s definitely worth trying them out as you travel through Japan, especially because half the time you don’t know what you are getting! I feel like that is half the fun though, sometimes you would bite into something thinking it would be sweet and it would be savoury, or bean paste much to my partners horror. But I enjoyed every minute of it, and every bite. I think we truly did eat our way around Japan, and I can’t wait to do it again!

More Japan wrap ups to follow!

Until next time, happy eating!

Ella xx