01.22.11
Kotobuki Seika Hiroshima Momiji
Rob, My Favorite Guinea Pig and I went off on a nut one Sunday and went looking for “That One Japanese Snack place near Canton. Or Maybe it was Novi. Or was it just inside Dearborn? Screw it, lets ride.” And so off we went with nothing but an iPhone app to guide us and our general sense of exploration. As it turns out, we found two shops and raided both for tasty snacks. This is the first of the snacks from “That place called Plum-something. Or Asia something. Look it up on the app.”
I’m a huge fan of red bean things and this looked right up my alley. My Favorite Guinea Pig is not so much a fan so I’m running solo today with the review. To start with the packaging, which seems logical since it’s the first thing you see, I really like the cut away showing the leaf bean paste innards as well as a whole leaf next to it for comparison. Of course the package is see through so you can see the actual leaf…biscuits? Cookies? Treats? Whatever they are that’s a little weird. Maybe it’s hard to see them all stacked on each other so the cover leaf is for ease of viewing. I do like the little red maple leaves falling around the package and the Torii Gate to Miyajima is a nice touch.
As for the cakes (?) I expected a sort of moon cake like outer wrapping or possibly a mochi like wrapping but instead the outer layer is a soft sponge cake like entity. It’s a little weird to get used to but not bad. It’s light and spongy and reminiscent of yellow cake (but spongy!) but not nearly as sweet. I rather like it.
The bean paste is beany, somewhat sweet but not too much and has a nice texture. I liked this snack, it’s a good, solid decent bean paste pastry.
Lastly, I did a little Google-Fu and discovered that according to this site, the maple leaf design is particular to the Hiroshima and Miyajima regions.
Rating of 3.5 Wasabi Peas out of a possible 5.
