So, I’ve had two interesting days of internship, well one and a half if you include the fact that half of yesterday’s internship got cancelled on account of typhoon. Tomorrow will be my last day. And just before that, I was in Tokyo, getting fat. And Church camp.
Today, I’m going to be talking about getting fat in Tokyo. Or, to put it nicely: the sweets shops that Simone and I visited while I was in Tokyo.
Why did I come up with such a scheme? Well, I was doing a translation baito (which has a long story of its own), and it was all about Tokyo. Tokyo and Disneyland and the sweets and other delicious food it has. Since I didn’t have the time or money to go to Disneyland, I decided to choose the four shops I wanted to go the most, and head there with Simone.
Our first shop was Dominique Ansel Bakery, home of the cronut. I’ve always wanted to try the authentic thing, and since going to New York would be too expensive, I settled for waking up at 6am in order to reach the bakery at 8am. The bakery’s in Harajuku, and in the morning, it is deserted. And contrary to what the internet was saying, there weren’t any queues either.
 |
| Absolutely no queues whatsoever. And we arrived maybe a few minutes after the shop opened? |
The shop itself is very white and feels really modern. My eyes, however, were drawn to the sweets.
I wanted to get all of them! I actually convinced myself that maybe I could, maybe, but then I remembered what happens when I get too much sugar.
So I only got the cronut and the frozen smore. I would have gotten the cookie shot too (a cookie glass filled with milk), but they only sell that after 3 pm. So I filed it away as “come back later if I can still eat, or on my next trip)
 |
| My frozen smore being prepared. |
 |
| Simone and I are ready to start eating~ |
The frozen smore is basically a roasted marshmallow which contains ice-cream which is covered in chocolate biscuit crumbs. Really good, although more of a dessert than a breakfast. And it was surprisingly big. When I finished it, I was so full I couldn’t touch the cronut. Thankfully, the cronuts came in boxes, so we just took that to go.
When I finally ate the cronut though… it was so good. Sugary, but good. I probably enjoyed the pastry more than the filling, since shiso doesn’t really seem like a dessert flavour. But it did make it less rich so….
 |
| I believe this is a berry and shiso flvaour. |
Next up was some fancy Echire Butter shop. I had to read up on this: Echire butter is butter from a very specific region in France, and apparently, the taste is really unique and even changes according to the seasons. All I know is that it’s supposed to be good, and the building it’s in pretty, so off we went.
This place actually had a queue. But, it isn’t as bad as what the magazine made out. I was told thirty minutes to an hour, but it only too us less than ten minutes. Although getting there from Tokyo station proved to be a pain.
 |
| Inside the shop |
Ok, I was way surprised at the prices. The croissants are roughly 400 yen each. But then again, a normal stick of butter was over 2000 yen! I think it was 2400 yen-ish? Not too sure, my mind kinda went into shop. But the shop smelled so good, so I ended up buying two croissants: the traditional one, and a salted butter one.
Oh, and an interesting observation. For Dominque Ansel Bakery and Magnolia Bakery (coming out in post 2, because I already have too many images), the customers were predominantly girls. Here, there was an even mix. I wonder why…
The croissants were good, but my tastebuds were probably still under the influence of sugar, (even though I ended up eating them for breakfast the next morning), because they just seemed a bit more buttery than normal. At least, the traditional one did. The salted butter one? That one was awesome. If you go, get the salted butter one, it’s more worth it.
So anyway, the place the shop was in is called Brick Square. It’s got a really lovely garden, where we basically rested for a while.
There’s also an art museum, but we didn’t go in.
Ok, next up, random walking around, lunch, and the last bakery of the day before we give up.