Ruheplatz

There's a small restaurant upstairs that remains for us to try out, which friends have told me is very good, but it did seem a little expensive. And that, you could say, is my neighbourhood, of Kogane-Hara. A place you won't see in travel magazines or tourist brochures, but with it's own charm nonetheless!

THE END.

Breads, in French

A painting on the wall outside. As my neighbour told me, whilst there aren't that many varied communities in Japan, which is still quite an isolated place, there are lots of cultures. Notice how lovingly the types of bread and their names in French were painted- I wouldn't be surprised if the owners have trained there.

As a matter of fact, the word for bread in Japan is from the French, 'pain', and instead of a bakery, they say 'bread shop', which is a translation of the French 'boulangerie', or hot bread shop. There are also a lot of 'patisseries' around, usually filled with house-wives and old ladies sipping a coffee and nattering about things. As for the men- they're usually at work- yes, even the supposedly 'retired' ones!

Cakes

Let's not forget the eclairs and doughnuts, while we're at it. Each of these is made to perfection, although they aren't always my cup of tea. Like many eclairs in Japan, these aren't made with whipped cream, rather a kind of custardy stuff. The doughnuts are also different than I'm used to. Instead of jam ('jelly', in the US), they have a sweet red-bean paste called 'anko',which is very popular here but also very sweet. I'm more a fan of their selection of danishes.

Breads

They also have fantastic brown and seed-rich breads, which are a far cry from the fluffy-white-cotton-wool stuff that predominates here, which I frankly can't stand! Here are real crusts and rich tastes. I sometimes buy a lot of brerad here and keep it in the freezer to have for breakfast each day.

Cup-cakes

It has a rich selection of breads and cakes, in the European style, which are certainly the best I've had in Japan. Here are some cup-cakes with prunes and pumpkin seeds.

Popularity

... It's very popular. Although this is just a regular, suburban street, you can often see a line of people waiting to get into what is a very small bakery. There is somethign slightly surreal about the sight.

The Bakery

Here's a fantastic local bakery, which we only recently discovered. As you can see...

Local Day in the Life- Backstreet Zopf

Some people reading this may see that the basic title is about 'A Day in my Life'- so I decided it was for me to post some more photos of my local area, where I spend a lot of my time. These were all taken with our new Fujifilm F30. It's an exciting new compact camera and you can see more photos taken with it here. Quite a lot of people have been looking at those photos just to see if the camera is as good as everyone says it is!

Note: 19/09/2006- The first draft of this piece (on July 18th) involved some snaps of everyday things here, which I was happy to look at just because of the pleasant associations... but then, looking again, I realised that they were 'watering down' what is becoming more and more a photography-based blog. There is a difference between a photo and a snap, just as (I would argue) there's a difference between treating photography as an art and as a craft.

So, I decided to do a bit of tidying up and edit the set down to just a presentation on this wonderful bakery. Being from England, I love good bread, but in Japan it is kind of hard to get. So I was really pleased to find a place in the area that has bread that doesn't just fill me up, but is amazingly delicious.