Backstube Zopf Bakery

Expats might think that if you want a decently baked bread, there's no way you would get it outside of Tokyo or Yokohama, the expat hubs of the Kantou region.

Well, I'm happy that Backstube Zopf, proved me absolutely wrong.

This unassuming door opens to a tiny, warm, and deliciously fragrant heaven.

Heavenly, right?

I was initially drawn to the pastries, just because I'm a huge custard fan, but Backstube Zopf is actually known for the very Japanese curry bread (カレーパン).

You usually can't go wrong with a curry bread at any bakery in Japan, but Zopf goes beyond just making it "right," it's been marked as the best in the Kantou region and featured on television--resulting in lines (especially on weekends) that sometimes stretch far down the street.

Most curry breads have a thicker bread exterior, similar to a white bread that has been deep fried. Zopf somehow makes their bread exterior thinner with an unexpected crispy crunch, allowing me to take a bite and still retain its shape.

The curry is also much better than your average bakery. It has a much more robust flavor and doesn't taste like regular boxed curry roux, which is the standard fare for most places.

Does it get better though? Why, thank you for asking. Yes, it does.

Zopf also makes a variation of this--the katsu curry bread (カツカレーパン). Yep, you guessed it. To make things even better, they stuff a tiny breaded and deep fried pork cutlet inside the curry bread.

The curry breads are one of Zopf's top-selling items, but don't worry about it selling out--the bakery fries a fresh batch as soon as supply gets dangerously low.

Zopf also carries a variety of different types of bread. I usually visit early morning though, so I naturally gravitate towards the danishes with their very fresh seasonal fruits.

I also ventured from my usual fruit danish breakfast to try the bienenstich, a seasonal pastry only available for the winter.

It was a beautiful change from the danishes, which are delicious in and of themselves. Zopf's bienenstich was soft,crisp, and had a light vanilla custard, same as the ones used in the danishes, making it a perfect tea time snack.

The pastries do unfortunately sell out, so if you feel that you must have one, be sure to get there early.

This is a definite must visit if you are in the area, but it is a bit of a trip out, involving a 10 minute bus ride from Kita Kogane train station.

It is definitely delicious though, so it won't disappoint if you do make the trip out.

As the German's say--Guten Appetit!

クロワッサンたい焼

I'm not much for sweets since I'm someone who, 99.9999% of the time, chooses chips over ice cream.

クロワッサンたい焼 (Croissant Taiyaki) is a definite exception though.

I passed by the little shops occasionally at the station, but even so, I never had any cravings except for one random commute. I've been hooked since.

Regular taiyaki has a sweet filling, usually bean paste or custard, baked inside a soft fluffy castella cake-like exterior on cast iron fish-shaped molds.

Croissant taiyaki substitutes the soft exterior with the unexpected surprise of a crunchy puff pastry exterior. The large coarse sugar granules also adds to the texture without making this snack overwhelmingly sweet.

The regular Croissant Taiyaki with a red bean filling.

The added texture actually has made me a bigger fan of Croissant Taiyaki than of regular street-side taiyaki. It feels as if you're eating a proper pastry, but the only downside is that it isn't warm (more on that later, though!)

To further stoke my inner glutton, Croissant Taiyaki also features seasonal flavors.

I've seen the poster for the custard flavor, and Dairy and Cream also featured a matcha/green tea collaboration with the Wicked Musical.

I've yet to get my hands on the custard flavor, but I spotted this poster for the chocolate flavor. The shop had unfortunately sold out for the day though, but I made it my mission the next day to be there early and get my chocolate croissant taiyaki.

Made with couverture chocolate, it certainly was chocolatey. Topped with sliced roasted almonds, this was a great combo. My friend ate hers on the spot, but I actually took it home and did a quick toast to melt the filling a little.

It was delicious, but I was expecting a heavier chocolate flavor (a part of me not so secretly longed for something along the lines of Nutella to gush out). It's certainly still a treat for chocolate lovers though!

My last bit of advice is to get yourself there early. The shops bake only a certain number every day, so once they're sold out, they're out (even if this is 3 in the afternoon, and that particular shopping center doesn't close for another 7 hours!?).

Enjoy!

俺のフレンチ・イタリアン青山

I've been wanting to go to 俺のフレンチ・イタリアン青山 (Ore no French Italian, Aoyama) almost the entire time I've been in Japan.

I was always a bit nervous though, since I had no experience with French food and deciphering what the katakana French menu offered seemed somewhat daunting.

Thanks to the all wonderful internet and even more awesome Dairy and Cream, I managed to compile a list of everything I wanted to try when I finally managed to make a reservation at the restaurant.

The majority of the tables are standing, but because we made a reservation the second time around, we managed to get a seated table.
Definitely much easier on the legs after walking around shopping in Omotesando all day :)

On to the food though.

A must try is the トマトのムース　雲丹とキャビアのジュレ寄せ (tomato mousse, uni and caviar gelee).


My roommate isn't actually a big uni fan, but we both were avid fans of this combo. I have to admit that I had my doubts too, since caviar and uni were such strongly flavored ingredients, but the smooth tomato mousse below really brought everything together in this dish. Plus--there were gold flakes on the caviar! Talk about luxurious!

Another dish we had was the　ズワイガニのフイヤンティーヌ〜ピスタチオとフランボワーズ (Snow crab feuillantine ~ pistachio and raspberry).


The feuillantine was a very interesting combination of tastes and textures. The crab meat and feuillantine complimented each other very well. My palate wasn't sensitive enough to pick up the raspberries though.

One of Ore no French Italian's specialties is the オマールのロースト～貴腐ワインのソース～ (Roasted lobster ~ Wine sauce).


The lobster roasted to perfection. Every bite had a piece of juicy fresh lobster, and the buttery sauce made me wish I could abandon my knife and fork.

Next is another favorite, the サーモンのテリーヌ (salmon terrine).


This one literally had me oohing and aahing. It came covered with a smoke-filled glass lid. When the lid was lifted, I had a slight recoil from the sharpness of the smoke within, but once the fog lifted (quite literally), behold the glory of this beautiful joined terrine. It definitely wasn't just a showy dish though--the taste lived up to its appearance.

The only thing about the terrine is that it's only available from 8pm onwards. The first time we visited Ore no French, many of their specialties were sold out, so we ordered this blessing in disguise.

Last, but not least is one of my Ore no French Italian favorites--the 牛フィレとフォアグラのロッシーニ トリュフソース (the beef filet and foie gras rossini with truffle sauce).


We saw this dish at nearly every table, and when we tasted ours, we knew why.

The smooth foie gras with the lean steak makes a perfect combination. Add that with the earthy truffles, and you have a beautifully composed steak dish on your hands. If it weren't for all the food that we had already stuffed into ourselves, I would have loved to have some bread to finish off the sauce.

Ore no French Italian is a must visit. There are some fees (music and the mandatory cheese price), but for the price that you pay for the food, it is most definitely worth it. If possible, do try and get a reservation, which can be made on the Ore no French Italian Aoyama website. Otherwise, you will probably be looking at around an hour to a two hour wait (still worth it though!).

Has anybody else been there before? What other dishes should I try?

TABITAI finally on TV

I always knew I was going to grow up to be a TV star, and frankly, when some random guys standing in front of Shibuya's Don Quixote finally asked us for an interview, I thought, "About damn time!"

I kid, of course.

It actually went down like this:
My brother and I had just come back from Haneda from dropping our parents off. We were meeting someone at Yuurakucho Station later at night, so I figured we'd have lunch and hang out around Shibuya to see if we could maybe have something of interest to buy.

We had lunch at a tiny curry shop and I spotted a Donki, sometimes my favorite store because it's such an eclectic mish mash of both useful and absolutely useless things.

"Let's go to Donki!" I exclaimed, not particularly looking for my brother's input. My brother meandered along good naturedly when he was suddenly stopped by a man in glasses asking in somewhat broken English.

"Excuse me," he enunciated carefully. "Are you here for trip?"

"Er...yes?"

The man explained that they were doing a segment on popular souvenirs amongst foreigners, and would we be willing to let them follow us around the store as we browsed?

My brother hesitated, but I said, "Sure!" before my brother could turn them down out of perfectly sensible privacy concerns.

It was the most awkward moment of window shopping I'd ever done, and I suddenly felt self-conscious of everything I was picking up and looking at. At one point, I turned the corner and found myself in a decidedly adult section of the store and hurriedly backed out.

Eventually, the crew stopped us and asked us a few interview questions such as, "Was the layout of the store confusing? How did you feel wandering around the store?"

At any rate, you can check us out in the video below. We appear at the 1:17 mark, and again at the 2:25 mark.

Appeared on national TV? Check

Watched by A-list Japanese celebrities? Check.

We also asked to commit the TV crew to (digital) film just in case we never got a recording of the actual clip, but of course YouTube came in handy later on down the road, and they were nice enough to oblige.

I became a minor celebrity of my workplaces, and it was interesting to be greeted by people who I had never met before with a, "Excuse me, but have I seen you on TV before?"

And now, I can answer, "Why--why, yes, you probably have."

Also, thanks for my brother's friend, Bennett Fong, for letting us know that he saw us on Youtube. Unfortunately, the clip he found was taken down, but I found another one easily enough and did a bit of poking around to save for myself.

Anyways, till next time~!

November and Middle School Friends

Matt kindly reminded that there haven't been much updates on the blog, so here I am!

November was actually a very busy month, and one of my closest friends, Megan, from when I was 12 actually came to Japan for a vacation with her boyfriend Ivan (maybe you can try to spot his ninja self in the wallpaper of the photo below!).

Because of Megan, I had one of the busiest long weekends ever. Unfortunately, most of the weekend was spent without Ivan, who was busy with work, but it might have been better for him that way since Megan and I ended up getting nostalgic about our tween years without Twilight and a lot of manga and Dragonball, haha.

We were originally supposed to meet in Kawagoe, but due to some mistakes in logistics, I actually ended up being a tourist in Kawagoe by myself.

The last time I went to Kawagoe was actually for the Kawagoe festival in October. The atmosphere was very different though, without thousands of people pouring into Kawagoe to see "float battles."

Kawagoe was much more relaxed this time, and I took a leisurely trip while following the tourist map. While there were certainly many pretty and quaint temples and shrines, my favorite--by far--was the 500 Statues of Rakan.

The sculptures, despite being worn down by time and the weather, were clearly unique. There was not a single statue that was the same as another.

And, of course, you can't go to see the 500 Rakan without seeing the two men in conversation.

There was also a little quest amongst the 500 Rakan for visitors. Amongst the 500 statues, 12 statues were holding animals from the Chinese zodiac. Legend had it if you found the rakan that held your zodiac animal and rubbed its head, you would have good luck.

Needless to say, I set out to find my statue and, after carefully inspecting each and every statue, I finally found the one holding a snake.

The day I visited the 500 Rakan, I was also lucky to stumble upon the annual Chrysanthemum festival that was being held at the same temple.

I've always loved chrysanthemums (as long as they weren't in the herbal teas that my dad would occasionally force us to drink, haha), but I think Japan is the first time I've seen competitive chrysanthemum growing.

I noticed that many of the chrysanthemums were grown with three chrysanthemums per plant and didn't think much of it until I found out it was apparently about representations of the balance of the universe.

The chrysanthemums are apparently a representation of the universe with one flower representing humans, the earth and the heavens respectively (don't quote me on this!). Regardless of what they represented though, the chrysanthemums of Japan are definitely painstakingly cared for.

There were also several different types of chrysanthemums, and I think I must have taken hundreds of photos after switching between lens and going in at different angles just to try and get a picture that would do these flowers justice.

After Kawagoe, the next big touristy stop was Yokohama.

I had visited Yokohama before in 2007 when I first came to Japan, but this trip to Yokohama was much more in depth.

We went from the infamous Chinatown to the diplomats homes in Minatomirai.

The diplomats' houses, to be honest, weren't the most exciting architectural works ever, but I definitely appreciated the luxuries of older buildings with the old dark wooden finishes and wicker furniture.

I also hung out with Megan late enough that the sun started to go down (believe me, it's really early here--think 5pm). Luckily, this meant we got to see a bit of Yokohama's twilight skyline which was definitely beautiful at all stages of the night.

After Yokohama, we took on the Imperial Gardens in Tokyo next. The main goal of the visit was for me to get some photos of fall foliage and not actually any specific desire of the actual tourist (Megan). After over half a year here, I'm still more of a tourist than the friend who has only been in town for less than 4 days....

But, since we met at Tokyo Station, it was a chance for me to see the newly renovated interior and exterior of the still most confusing an annoying train station known to mankind classy brick structure.

While we got some photos of autumn foliage, I was still rather disappointed by the lack of reds and golds at the Imperial Gardens, but there were still several beautiful nature shots that let me break in the new tiny lens.

Now, I've gone this far without mentioning anything about food (I know, right?! A Christmas miracle!), but here it is--THE FOOD.

For this, I must extend my heartfelt and stomach-felt thanks to Ivan, who generously covered our meals. Delicious and free? Tabia is a happy camper.

I think he saw why Megan and I were friends for so long after hanging out a few times, haha.

There's actually still some other November events to cover, but I'll leave that for another time (hopefully this week, before December bites my butt, haha).

Stay warm, stay safe, and till next time!