About 90 percent of the things I eat while I’m travelling are either based on research or popularity (i.e. if I see a line for food, I’m probably going to stand in that line regardless of what it’s for).
Occasionally, however, I’ll see something like the dorayaki ice cream sundae at Sazae x Ishiya. I hadn’t heard anything about it, and there were no crowds. But come on: look at that thing. That’s way too delightful to pass up. I had to try it.
I don’t think I’ve ever wished that I liked matcha quite as much as I did while I was eating the matcha Bavarian cream at Kinozen.
Add this to the always-growing list of line-based discoveries. The line-up at Yanagiya Taiyaki is pretty intense, even by Tokyo’s line-loving standards.
If you haven’t seen Kantaro: The Sweet Tooth Salaryman on Netflix, you need to rectify that immediately. It’s basically a sitcom crossed with a food/travel show, all filtered through a lens of grade-A Japanese weirdness. It’s delightful.
This isn’t going to be the longest post ever, but there are a couple of facts that I need to point out.
When I had the chendol from Penang Road Famous Chendol, the vendor across from it was closed because of Chinese New Year (Thanks, Chinese New Year, for making sure basically everything was closed during the bulk of my trip to Penang. Thanks. I was hoping that most of the places I wanted to try would be closed. You know, just to spice things up).
Ice chendol isn’t the most photogenic dessert ever, but man, it’s so good.
Are wheel cakes the king of street vendor desserts? In Taiwan, at least, I think the answer has to be yes. Vendors selling these things are everywhere.
One of those things that’s huge in Asia and virtually unheard of in the west is putting beans in desserts. It’s a little bit off-putting at first, but then you quickly realize it’s delicious and wonder why you haven’t spent your whole life eating beany sweets.