I don’t usually watch much TV, but last month, while I was living in a hotel thanks to a friend’s help, I caught a show picking the best mango pudding in Tokyo. It’s sold at the boutique-and-café in the basement of the Peninsula Hotel: 2,000 yen if you eat it in the café, but only 600 yen for takeout. That’s a bit pricey for a dessert, but if it’s being called the best in Tokyo, I can’t really say it’s expensive. I actually thought about going the very next day, but figured it would be chaos right after the broadcast, so I waited a while before heading over.
The front entrance
It’s an upscale cake shop. Everything looks delicious… but the prices are on the steep side. Even a month after the show, plenty of customers were still asking for the mango pudding.
I got it to go. Here’s the packaging.
Pretty classy. With this much care put into the packaging, it would make a good gift too.
The long-awaited mango pudding!
It melted a little. With fresh desserts like this, storage matters even more than with cake or chocolate. If you don’t keep them cold, they melt in no time. I should have run straight home right after buying it, but stopping off here and there on the way was a mistake. Anyway, it still looks okay. I scooped up a spoonful, and the taste I’d been hoping for… was, just as expected, fantastic. It’s a fresh-tasting pudding rather than a rich one. The freshness of the mango blew me away, but what really got me was how the dairy strikes a perfect balance right between heavy and light. It truly deserves to be called the best in Tokyo.
The open kitchen
Busy making the popular mango pudding.
As a bonus, here are a few desserts I’ve tried lately.
A Ginza macaron
This is the macaron, a long-standing specialty of the Hotel Seiyo Ginza. It costs a whopping 231 yen each. It’s big, and what sets it apart is the rum and raisin filling. The taste isn’t bad if you’re having it with coffee or tea, but honestly, it’s just way too expensive. I’d say it works as a gift, at most.
Cream puff from Toshi Yoroizuka
240 yen each. It seems to be one of Toshi Yoroizuka’s specialties. They fill the puff with cream after you order, but I didn’t really see the need for that, since it isn’t a warm cream puff or anything. It’s definitely tasty, but if it were me, I’d add a little more money and get the Choux Paysanne, even though it was awkward to eat ^_^.
Toshi Yoroizuka offers a wide range of high-quality desserts, so I go there fairly often, but in my opinion their gift packaging is a bit lacking. I’m not asking for Gucci-level, but I wish they’d take a page from Hidemi Sugino’s luxurious packaging.
I’ve been going to dessert shops a lot lately, and the truth is, I’m crazy about desserts.
Unlike other food, dessert exists purely for the pleasure of your mouth. (If you’re not confident about managing your calorie intake, please don’t get hooked on desserts, for your health’s sake.) In life there are hard times and sad times… okay, that’s a bit dramatic, but I believe that whatever kind of meal you have, everyone has the right to end it with a delicious dessert and feel at least a little happy. That’s how life should be! Otherwise, what’s the point? Maybe that’s why these days I often catch myself thinking I’d like to become a pâtissier. Ah… well, that’s a story for the far future. For now I should just focus on my work ^_^