Japanese cafe serves up fruit sandwiches like nowhere else

There’s a reason these are some of the best sandwiches you’ll find in Japan.

One of the best things about travelling to different regions in Japan is discovering the hidden eateries loved by locals that tourists are yet to discover, where you can enjoy hearty meals at good prices, making for an experience you’ll cherish forever.

If you’re in Nagasaki and want to eat fruit sandwiches like a local, then our Japanese-language reporter, Mariko Ohanabatake has a secret place she’d like to share with you: Cafe & Bar Umino.

▼ ウミノ (“Umino”)

Born and bred in Nagasaki, Mariko knows all the good places tourists from outside the prefecture don’t. Umino is a long-established coffee shop that used to have two locations in the busy Hamanomachi Arcade, but it’s become so popular it now has a third sit-down branch, on the fifth floor of Amu Plaza Nagasaki at Nagasaki Station.

While this location is relatively new, with a stylish, modern interior, it still retains the retro look of the long-established coffeehouse.

While many locals like to stop here for coffee and cake, the specialty is actually their milkshake, with a large signboard at the front drawing it to everyone’s attention.

Whenever Mariko visits Nagasaki, though, she skips the cake and milkshake and always orders one thing here — the fruit sandwich set.

▼ On this occasion, she ordered the “Half Sandwich Set” for 1,000 yen (US$6.48)

This set includes three fruit sandwiches, a drink and a salad. Though the sandwiches might seem small compared to others on the market, they’re actually large in volume and surprisingly filling.

The fruit inside varies slightly depending on the season, and winter to spring is especially special, as it’s the only time you get strawberries in the filling. At other times of the year, melons and mangoes may be included in place of strawberries, but whatever time of the year you visit, you’re sure to receive delicious seasonal fruits as that’s something this cafe prides itself upon.

With so many stores and cafes selling fruit sandwiches in Japan, what makes these so special? According to Mariko, these sandwiches truly are one-of-a-kind, and there’s one reason for it.

▼ The delicious cream.

Mariko describes the cream as out of this world, as it adds just enough sweetness to the tartness of the fruit and saltiness of the bread to create an exquisite harmony of flavours that outshines any other fruit sandwich she’s ever eaten. As fruit sandwiches are often made by specialty fruit stores, they tend to use cream that’s slightly less sweet to bring out the sweetness of the fruit, but at Umino, they concentrate on bringing out the sweetness of the cream to its fullest, giving the entire sandwich a truly addictive flavour.

▼ A unique taste that’s sweeter and creamier than its counterparts.

Mariko suspects powdered sugar is added to the cream to give it its divine sweetness, but when she asked staff about the ingredients used, they told her their cream was “a trade secret“. Staff seemed well aware that their cream is what brings customers back time and time again, as it really does have a unique sweet cream flavour that’s unlike anywhere else.

If you’re not in the mood for fruit sandwiches, though, Umino has many other delicious dishes on the menu, including egg sandwiches…

▼…and a strawberry cake called “Candle”, which is only available in winter and made from the same cream as the fruit sandwiches.

Though Mariko has tried these other dishes, she always finds herself ordering a fruit sandwich because they’re truly that good.

▼ When she visited this month, she got a chance to try the special limited-time strawberry fruit sandwiches, which were dreamy.

▼ You can also order half-a-dozen full-size fruit sandwiches for 1,000 yen, which makes for a very filling meal.

For Mariko, no other fruit sandwich in Tokyo, not even these wildly popular jaw-dropping varieties, compares to the ones served up at Umino in Nagasaki. It’s one of many ways people in Nagasaki do things differently to the rest of Japan!

Restaurant information
Cafe & Bar Umino / カフェ＆バー　ウミノ
Address: Nagasaki-ken, Nagasaki-shi, Onoecho 1-1, Amu Plaza Nagasaki 5F
長崎県長崎市尾上町1-1　アミュプラザ長崎5F
Open 11 a.m.-10 p.m. (last order 9:15 p.m.)

Related: Amu Plaza Nagasaki, Hot Pepper
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Starbucks Ginza House now sells the most expensive matcha Frappuccino in Japan

New Uji matcha drinks you can only get at this location, but are they worth the high price tag?

On 17 February, Starbucks opened a new Teavana branch at its Ginza Maronnier Street location, marking the chain’s 2,000th store in Japan. With a Starbucks Reserve Roastery already on the first and second floors of the premises, this new opening on the basement level led the chain to rename the location “Starbucks Ginza House“, acting as something of a flagship store in the high-end neighbourhood.

Teavana specialises in tea, and this branch, located down the stairs (marked by an arrow below), serves up some exclusive matcha drinks you won’t find anywhere else.

▼ The entrance to Teavana is a little out of the way so it can be hard to find for first-timers.

▼ Once you make your way down the stairs, you’ll be greeted by a warm and inviting interior.

What makes this Teavana particularly special is the fact that it has a stone mill, which is used to grind the powdered green tea — sourced from Uji, Japan’s premier matcha-producing region — for the store’s exclusive matcha drinks.

▼ The millstone rotates automatically, spreading the aromas of freshly ground green tea throughout the store.

There are three matcha beverages in the lineup: the Ginza Stone Ground Matcha Mousse Tea & Strawberry, the Ginza Stone Ground Matcha Frappuccino, and the Ginza Stone Ground Matcha Tea Latte (pictured left to right below), priced from 1,100-1,480 yen (US$7.26-$9.77).

With regular Frappuccinos priced in the 700-yen range, the one served here is the most expensive in Japan. The other matcha exclusives are equally pricey, and the Mousse Tea & Strawberry is only available in limited quantities each day.

▼ We couldn’t resist trying the Mousse Tea and the Frappuccino, to see if they were worth the high price.

The first thing that stands out about these drinks is their rich matcha colour, which makes them look incredibly thick and creamy.

▼ Let’s begin the tasting with the Ginza Stone Ground Matcha Mousse Tea & Strawberry.

The staff member who made this drink for us suggested we start by scooping out a spoonful of the mousse to try on its own. This turned out to be a wonderful introduction to the drink, as it delivered a strong and delectably intense matcha flavour straight to the taste buds.

▼ The mousse contains all the bitterness, flavour, and deliciousness of matcha that fans have come to know and love, but on a whole new level.

The powdered green tea in this drink is rich and authentic — a cut above the standard “matcha flavour” that exists all over the world. It’s an elegant, refined taste you can only get from freshly ground green tea, and it’s surprisingly well matched for the sweet-and-sour strawberry sauce, fresh cream, and white chocolate syrup in the base layer.

The fluffiness of the matcha mousse, however, is a standout, as it tastes very similar to the freshly whisked matcha you get at a formal Japanese tea ceremony. The wasanbon (refined Japanese sugar) within the drink helps to enhance the traditional flavours, as this type of sugar is commonly used to make sweets served with matcha at tea ceremonies, creating a very sophisticated and unique beverage.

▼ Now it’s time to find out how the Ginza Stone Ground Matcha Frappuccino compares.

The matcha layer here appears slightly darker, and upon trying a spoonful, it was less light and fluffy, but still strong on green tea aroma and flavour.

Unlike the Mousse Tea, the Frappuccino contains a whole lot of crushed ice, so it has a much lighter matcha flavour. With only two main ingredients — matcha and milk — in the mix, it has less variety in texture and taste, but the simplicity of ingredients will appeal to matcha purists.

For us, the Mousse Tea wins hands down in terms of value for money and uniqueness, and as the only place in the world where you can try it, we have a feeling that Starbucks Ginza House will soon become a hotspot for local and international tourists.

▼ There are other treasures to try at the attached Reserve Roastery as well, including a wide variety of baked goods at the Princi Bakery.

So next time you find yourself in the busy hub of Ginza, you might want to seek solace in this quiet basement at Starbucks. It’s a great place to get a taste of some very exclusive drinks, and there’s even a caramel macchiato and a matcha sweet on the menu that you won’t find anywhere else as well.

Store information
Starbucks Teavana Store Ginza Marronnier Street / スターバックス ティバーナストア 銀座マロニエ通り
Address: Tokyo-to, Chuo-ku, Ginza 3-7-3 , Ginza Omi Building
東京都 中央区 銀座3-7-3 銀座オーミビル B1F
Open: 7:00 a.m.-10:00 p.m.
Irregular holidays

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People in Japan are eating a lot less fish now than they used to, but why?

Japan’s per-person fish consumption has dropped by almost 50 percent in just a generation.

Japan is, in many ways, a piscivore’s paradise. As a compact island nation, when you’re in Japan you’re never very far away from the sea, and in addition to the country’s representative cuisine of sushi, Japanese culinary traditions include an abundance of grilled and simmered fish dishes.

And yet, these days Japan is eating a lot less fish than it used to. The obvious explanation might be to say “Well, Japan’s population is shrinking, so obviously the country is going to be eating less fish,” except that Japan’s per-person fish consumption has fallen, and by quite a lot. According to statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Japan’s per-person fish consumption peaked in 2001, with an average of 40.2 kilograms (88.6 pounds) of fish eaten per person in Japan. Fast forward to 2022, the latest year for which the ministry has posted its food supply and demand tables on its publicly viewable website, and that amount has dropped to 22 kilograms of fish eaten per person per year, a decline of over 45 percent from the peak and the lowest amount on record since the ministry began collecting such statistics in 1960.

Meanwhile, Japan’s per-person consumption of meat (i.e. land-based animals) has been increasing. Per-person meat consumption passed fish consumption in 2011, and in 2022 reached 33.5 kilograms per person annually, showing that Japan, collectively, is eating around one and a half times as much meat as fish.

▼ Our reporting team’s taste test of Kiki’s Delivery Service hamburgers further contributed to Japan’s meat consumption levels.

This dietary shift has been getting renewed interest recently, in part due to a column in Japanese online news magazine JB Press, which cited the statistics mentioned above. That column speculates that one reason Japan is eating less fish these days is that Japan has fewer specialized fishmonger shops than it used to, having gone from roughly 50,000 such businesses in 1980 to only 10,000 or so today. This theory, though, doesn’t hold much water. Fishmonger shops didn’t close down because of a lack of demand for fish after 1980 (per-person fish consumption continued to grow until 2001, remember), but because shoppers started buying more of their fish, along with many other categories of groceries, at supermarkets, which offer a more comprehensive product lineup and convenient, centralized locations, especially for residents of urban and urban-adjacent areas.

The ministry itself offers a few more plausible explanations, saying in its report that while fish is broadly seen by the Japanese population as healthy and delicious, modern consumers also find it expensive and a hassle to prepare, with some not even knowing how to it at all.

▼ Fish are cooking’s hard mode.

Let’s take a closer look at those points. First, fish may not be as premium-priced in Japan as it is in some other countries, but even in Japan, meat is often the more economical option at the supermarket in terms of calories per yen, so if your goal is to have a full stomach and a mostly full wallet, it’s usually more budget-friendly to cook with meat (pork and chicken especially) than fish. The same goes for eating out, too: It’s much easier to find meaty cheap but filling options (beef bowls, hamburgers, karaage fried chicken) than fish ones.

Shifting the focus back to cooking at home, it’s also often a lot easier to expand meat-centric recipes. If you’re making curry or pasta, doubling the recipe size is pretty simple: just toss in twice as much chicken into the roux or ground meat into the tomato sauce. Cooking more fish, though, often entails a lot more work, whether that’s turning over individual fillets so they cook properly on both sides, keeping a close eye on simmered fish so that it doesn’t fall apart in the pot, removing heads, skin, or tails prior to cooking, or a number of other inconveniences that you don’t have to worry about if you instead cook something that uses, for instance, a pack of pre-sliced pork strips. Fish also tends to keep for a shorter time after cooking than meat dishes do, so in addition to the hassle of making it in the first place, the benefit of making enough to have leftovers is reduced as well.

▼ There’s a reason we cooked 53 packs of curry all at once, not 53 fish.

One factor that neither the ministry report nor the JB Press column seems to consider is the shift in Japanese household sizes and work patterns. It’s now far more common for single young adults in Japan to move out of their parents’ homes than it was a generation or two ago. Many people are staying unmarried much later into adulthood than their parents or grandparents did, and with roommates being an uncommon living arrangement in Japan, the result is many more people living alone, often in small or studio apartments.

When it only takes you a few long strides to go from one end of your living space to the other, that means that nothing in your home is very far away from your kitchen, and it’s not uncommon for people in such situations to avoid cooking fish at home so as not to have fishy odors transfer to their clothing, bedsheets, and other non-culinary-related belongings. Also, as discussed above, it’s a lot easier to make large batches of food that’ll keep for a longer time if you’re making meat-based dishes. If you’re an adult who lives by yourself, the idea of making a giant batch of food al at once and then coasting on the leftovers instead of grocery shopping and cooking every day after you clock out of work starts to get very attractive. Even for married couples, it’s now the norm for both husband and wife to work, further increasing the need to focus on quick, easy-to-prepare meals.

So perhaps the most accurate takeaway from all this is that it’s not so much that Japan doesn’t like eating fish as much as it used to, but that a number of modern lifestyle aspects are making it comparatively more difficult to eat fish than it was 20, 30, or 40 years ago. With work/life balance becoming something that a lot of people in Japan are reevaluating these days, maybe “I want to get home from work with enough time to relax and cook fish” will become a new workstyle paradigm.

Source: JB Press via Yahoo! Japan News via Jin
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Insert images: SoraNews24, Pakutaso
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Potential-measuring techno crystals, mist that doesn’t get you wet to be part of Osaka Expo 2025

Wait no m0re for The Land of Nomo.

The big World Expo in Osaka is coming up later this year, and even though I live in Osaka I haven’t really heard much about what will happen there, aside from that some restrooms will be made out of historic rocks and that the life-sized Gundam from Yokohama is here.

But as the opening date approaches and pavilions near completion, we might finally get a clearer picture of what the 2025 World Expo will have to offer. Panasonic got an early start on their own pavilion and on 14 February gave a glimpse of how it works. The building is called The Land of Nomo, in which “nomo” is the Japanese word for “things,” “mono,” backwards.

The main building is made from 98 percent recycled materials taken from used appliances. It’s divided into two sections with the first being a sort of experimental free-play zone in which guests are given a crystal that they carry and use to trigger lights and sounds in their environment around them. As they do this, cameras monitor each person closely, analyzing their behavior and facial expressions. When they move into the next section, this data is used to give them a personality profile that tells them about their inner potential.

▼ A news report showing the inside of the pavilion

To be honest, the news report above doesn’t look all that mind-blowing, but in The Land of Nomo’s defense, it seems that a lot of its more impressive features either weren’t shown or couldn’t be picked up well by the TV camera.

The curtain of mist is especially interesting as it’s designed to be so fine that you don’t get wet when walking through it. It’s also used for projection mapping and Panasonic is able to manipulate the air currents in the building so the mist is confined to shapes rather than disperse as mist is known to do. This could make for some very interesting and well-defined visual effects.

▼ There’s a story element to the exhibit too, as shown in this teaser trailer.

Also, when interacting with the crystals and pavilions, reactions aren’t limited to lights and sounds. Vibrations and changes in the air also occur for a more immersive experience. It’s also worth noting that with its themes of unlocking future potential, this exhibit is aimed at, but not limited to, children. In fact, Panasonic will also set up a tentatively named “Online Next-generation Co-creation Platform” in tandem with this exhibit that will continue to operate after the Expo and help kids develop their own skills.

The bottom line at the moment is that The Land of Nomo seems to be the kind of thing you’d have to experience first-hand before judging it, but it looks like it could be cool. Hopefully, we can see more of what this World Expo has in store as its start gets closer and closer.

Source, images: PR Times
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Totoro sequel anime short inspires cuddly T-shirt, adorable plushies at Ghibli Museum shop【Pics】

Mei and the Baby Catbus lineup includes spooky but cute “Ghost Totoro.”

One of the most bittersweet things about being a fan of Studio Ghibli anime is knowing that there’s a My Neighbor Totoro sequel short, but also knowing that you can only see it if you make a trip to the Ghibli Museum in Tokyo or Ghibli Park in Aichi Prefecture. Even then, you have to be fortunate enough to be able to time your trip for when Mei and the Baby Catbus is playing in the museum or park’s on-site theater, since the anime they show are on a rotating schedule that changes every few weeks.

For example, Mei and the Baby Catbus is playing at the Ghibli Museum right now, but only until the end of the month. However, the museum’s shop, including its online store operations, offer merch from the Totoro sequel all the time, and there’s even a stylish new T-shirt that’s been added to the lineup.

-Mild potential spoilers for Mei and the Baby Catbus follow.-

Starting with the brand-new item, we have the Ghibli Museum Ghost Totoro Flocking T-shirt.

Don’t let the name scare you, Totoro isn’t dead in the sequel, but we’ll leave the exact nature of the “Ghost Totoro” unsaid here, for those who haven’t seen the anime yet. What we will say, though, is that “flocking” here refers not to the shirt’s assembled group of shadowy figures, but to the fluffy texture used for the one in the middle.

On the other hand, if you want even more fuzzy softness, and in a huggable form too, there are no fewer than four plushies inspired by Mei and the Baby Catbus.

The Baby Catbus itself comes in three sizes: a 13-centimeter (5.1-inch) strap and plushes with lengths of 24 and 33 centimeters (1,650, 2,750, and 3,850 yen, respectively).

▼ The non-strap plushies have an opening where their single rider would sit.

You might have noticed in the above photos that while a full-grown Catbus has six pairs of legs, a baby has only three. 12 isn’t the highest total number of legs for feline forms of transportation in the My Neighbor Totoro world, though. Not by a longshot, as shown here by the 43-centimeter Cattrain plushie (3,630 yen).

▼ The Cattrain also has three tails.

And if you want your Baby Catbus to serve a practical purpose beyond receiving your frequent cuddles, these three-centimeter magnets (660 yen each) are up to the task…

…and so is the one on this key ring (1,980 yen), accompanied by Mei and the Ghibli Museum crest.

Oh, and if you can’t get Ghost Totoro out of your head? There’s a 14-centimeter plush of him too.

▼ Individually they’re 1,430 yen, but for maximum visual impact you may want to get more than one.

The whole lineup is available through the Ghibli Museum online store here.

Source: Ghibli Museum
Top image: Ghibli Museum
Insert images: PR Times, Ghibli Museum (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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Everyday Japanese cafe chain’s seasonal sakura sweets look amazing from every angle…except one

You’ll want to snap your photos before you start eating one of this chain’s tempting new cherry blossom treats.

There are a lot of similarities between cherry blossoms themselves and sakura sweets. Both are widely loved but only stick around for a short time each year, for starters, and just like how you can find beautifully flowering cherry blossom trees in both exquisite, centuries-old gardens and local neighborhood parks, so too can you find amazing sakura desserts that are a treat for the eyes and taste buds in both premium-priced patissiers and everyday chain cafes.

The latest example of the latter group comes to us from Cozy Corner, who’s whipping up two cherry blossom treats, each of which is topped with an actual sakura flower. Those aren’t just garnishes, either, as Japan’s most famous flowers are edible, and are especially tasty in salt-preserved form, as they appear here (as a matter of fact, the “sakura flavor” found in Japanese desserts is a mix of sweet, salty, and very slightly floral notes).

First up is the Sakura Cake (529 yen [US$3.50] per slice). Between those sheets of sakura sponge cake are sliced strawberries in whipped cream, tsubu an sweet red beans in cream, and rich custard with gyuhi (extra-soft mochi). All of that is blanketed under a topping of sakura cream with a salted sakura flower as the proverbial cherry on top.

Even fancier is the Sakura Mont Blanc (496 yen).

Though named after the European Alps mountain whose name translates to “Mount White,” Mont Blanc the dessert is usually brown, as the orthodox version is made of strands of sweet chestnut puree. This pink Mont Blanc, though, is made with strands of sakura-flavored sweet bean paste, and Cozy Corner makes no mention of chestnut in its description of it. The ingredient list has even more Japanese influences as you make your way down below the sakura flower and bean paste. Beneath them is a stratum of matcha green tea cream partially covering a core of matcha sweet bean paste, ringed by whole tsubu an sweet beans. All of this sits atop a sakura madeleine cake foundation, culminating in a complex but surely immensely satisfying mix of sweet, bitter, salty, and rich flavors.

However, as captivating a concept as the Sakura Mont Blanc’s ingredient lineup is, you might want to avoid looking at it in cross-section, and likewise to avert your eyes from the photo below, because while it looks delectable to start, viewed post-bit from the side it doesn’t look unlike a cyclopean monster.

Of course, that whole issue is resolved by snapping any photos you want before you take your first bite, which also carries the benefit of eliminating any other tasks that would struggle in vain to compete with your attention after you start eating this amazing-sounding, mostly amazing-looking dessert.

Both the Sakura Cake and the Sakura Mont Blanc are on sale now at Cozy Corner (though they’re not available at the chain’s branches in Kyushu or Hokkaido, Fukui, Kyoto, Saga, Tottori, Shimane, Yamaguchi, Ehime, or Kochi Prefectures), and will be on offer until approximately April 10, with a “while supplies last” caveat. And yes, this does mean that they’re overlapping with Cozy Corner’s extra-adorable Poké Peace Pokémon cakes, so we absolutely won’t blame you if you come back from your dessert run with 11 different cakes.

Source, images: PR Times
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