Japanese Food Gifts

The Japanese, they take their gift-giving seriously, a fact that I was reminded of while in Tokyo yesterday. I was passing through Ueno Station, one of my favorite parts of the city, and I saw an interesting shop selling omiyage (oh-mee-YAH-gay, souvenirs) of Tokyo, with the interesting name of Gift Island. They offered all manner of exotic sweets for sale, from the famous Tokyo Banana (banana-shaped cakes) to Goma Tamago (a traditional manju cake shaped like an egg and made with black sesame seeds, supposedly very healthy) to the fabulous castella, a cake rich in eggs that was introduced by the Dutch in the 16th century. One of my favorite traditional treats is called dora-yaki, which looks to the Western eye to be two pancakes with sweet Japanese beans inside; this is the favorite food of Doraemon the time-traveling robot cat, by the way. Of course, J-List has recently started carrying some interesting gift boxes of souvenir snacks you normally can only buy in places like Akihabara or Asakusa, with packages that are specially designed to be suitable for giving to others as gifts, or you can munch them yourself. Check them out on the site!

It looks like a Twinkie, but it’s Tokyo Banana, so it’s much cooler ^_^