Job Discussion Forums

Black_Beer_Man · Joined: 26 Mar 2013 Posts: 453 Location: Yokohama

Feeling disappointed searching for a delicious box of cookies at the supermarket today, I thought a food recommendation thread might be an interesting idea for Dave's ESL.

I couldn't find even one brand of cookies that looked delicious. Most of my past choices disappointed. Furthermore, quite often you only get around 12 cookies in a box. What gives? Are the ingredients to make cookies so expensive in Japan that they can only sell small boxes of 12?

Buying ice cream in the supermarkets is equally disappointing. There are no decent reasonably priced brands that I know of. If you want good tasting ice cream, then, you have to go with a premium brand like Hagen Daz. This situation does not make any sense when New Zealand and Australia are a short distance away and both countries are major exporters of dairy products including ice cream.

I'd like people to post any grocery product names that they especially like. Also, the names of boutiques that sell foods to take home would be good too.

I can recommend bakeries in Japan. This is one type of non Japanese food that they do well. Cozy Corner has nice shortcake and almost any bakery here produces nice bread.

cat mother · Joined: 22 Sep 2009 Posts: 62

teacheratlarge · Joined: 17 Nov 2011 Posts: 192 Location: Japan

St. Germain does nice baguettes, but it's true unfortunately, some of the baked goods here are very hit or miss. I have see nice ryes and sourdoughs, but the prices for half loaves left me 'breadless'.

TokyoLiz · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 1548 Location: Tokyo, Japan

Tokyo Rusk. It's specialty rusk with various flavourings.

2buckets · Joined: 14 Dec 2010 Posts: 515 Location: Middle East

Western types of sweets are not the forte of some Eastern cultures.

In China it's the same.

You have to go as far as the middle east to get something similar to what we like, (baklava).

Black_Beer_Man · Joined: 26 Mar 2013 Posts: 453 Location: Yokohama

Pitarou · Joined: 16 Nov 2009 Posts: 1116 Location: Narita, Japan

timothypfox · Joined: 20 Feb 2008 Posts: 492

I just want share what I've found about Japanese breads. Japanese do sweet breads with white flour well, but if you want brown flour or heavy multi-grain breads - they are hard to find. I often bake my own bread because I can make bread less sweet and throw oats and nuts into it and seasoning like basil and skimp on the sugar if I use it at all. A bag of 750g of white flour should set you back about 97 yen, and a packet of yeast at about around 150 yen. Then carefully compare prices for nuts between the baking area (often very high) to nuts in the men's snack area (cheaper). Nuts that are affordable and available are almonds, cashew nuts, pumpkin seeds, and sunfower seeds. I would avoid dates because of their expensive price tag, and go for other more affordable dried fruit if you use it. Spices are fairly cheap for whatever you want to use such as basil, black pepper, or salt. A bag of oats is unfortunately about 350 yen a bag for about 180g. A whole jar of those cinnamon toast sugars - such as caramel flavor, or cinnamon flavor added to a bread mix are excellent for a slightly sweetened bread as is a little almond or vanilla essence.

Bagels? Not easily found! Will be attempting to make my own soon!