Bites Of The Week

The Three Little Pigs - sweet bread with custard filling.

Mochi sweets-made from rice flour and filled with red bean paste (anko).

Seasonal Treats

I had to run quite a few errands on the road this week. Some of them took more time than I had expected. They left me feeling a bit tired. I decided to pick up some treats for the family so I could delay cooking for a bit.
I went to the supermarket and shortly after walking in, I spotted some seasonal treats. They gave me a feeling of autumn. I noticed that they had a short shelf-life and knew that that wouldn’t have been a problem as my family would have devoured them on the same day of purchase. Haha!
When I got home, I opened the packages and plated the sweets.

The brown sweets are made to look like acorns (representative of autumn, the next season). They are topped with crushed sesame seeds.

Here, the orange sweets are made to look like persimmons which are representative of autumn.

I’ve always found it fascinating how in Japan, they often make sweets or treats to suit the particular seasons. Mochi-like sweets are common and are often filled with red bean paste, otherwise called anko. The shapes, colors and forms however, sometimes differ and often reflect spring, summer, autumn or winter.
Each mochi was eaten in about 2-3 bites. They were delicious.

Stopping By The Bread Shop

On another day, I stopped by a bread shop. Before going there, I passed by yet another bread shop and saw a very big,long loaf of bread. It was fresh from the oven and was being sold in measurable cuts. There was a ruler next to the bread. Customers could see and determine the length they wanted.

Very long loaf of bread

It had captured my interest but I moved along, went closer to the train station and stopped by the bread shop and cafe that was adjacent to it. There were several signs outside the shop. Each displayed items that were being offered. Though summer treats are almost out, I noticed that they still had shaved ice and ice-cream as menu items. Well, ice-cream is probably an all-season item.

Ice-cream and shaved ice

Dog and Cat Character Bread

Cat character bread

Flavors of shaved ice included strawberry, mango, yuzu, matcha, red bean paste and milk. Some of them even had mochi.

Character Bread

I thought the character breads were cute. I looked around a bit and saw “cats”, “dogs”, “pigs” and “turtles”. It seemed like a little bread farm.

I got a bit excited to choose my animals. I picked up a cat (banana flavored bread and three little pigs (sweet bread with custard filling). When I got to the cashier, we had a small conversation:

Me: Are these delicious ?

Cashier: Yes! (With a smile)

Me: I’m very happy to hear that because I just thought they were cute and picked them up without thinking much about the taste.

She giggled a bit loudly. I could see the laughter in her eyes and could almost see it behind her mask.
I laughed and said, “Thank You”. We bowed and then I waved bye. When I got home, I plated the breads, broke them and then my family ate them.
They were really good bites.

Banana flavored cat bread

Custard cream filled (three pigs)

Pieces of bread

Which of these treats would you choose?

Thank you for reading my post. Have a lovely day.😃