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Not to take away from your point, but Japanese baked goods—especially breads and pastries—are extremely high quality, even if they’ve got a local spin that migh

Not to take away from your point, but Japanese baked goods—especially breads and pastries—are extremely high quality, even if they’ve got a local spin that might turn off the hardcore purists. By the way, I just bought a homemade kurogoma dofu today from the little shop in my neighborhood here in Kyoto. It’s not “real” tofu, but it’s mind-meltingly great!

jbay808 7y ago
Agreed. The bread from bakeries in Japan are the best I've had anywhere; they definitely have a "bread culture" of their own and take it very seriously, and it seemed like almost every bakery in Tokyo was producing bread of remarkable quality. On the other hand, the bread at supermarkets in Japan usually was just white sandwich bread and little else.
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SECProto 7y ago
I think you missed the point of the grandparent comment. It referred specifically to what "the average person thinks [is] a baguette". I love Japanese baked goods, lots of super light fluffy bread, great pastries. But crusty, fresh baguette is not something I saw much in three years of living in Japan. Every supermarket had bread in a bag that was called バゲット and looked like baguette — but every one got the texture all wrong. Just like there are places (Asian groceries, etc) to get good tofu in North America, I'm sure there are places to get good baguette in Japan. But the average person would think of what they can get in their local supermarket, which is decidedly not-good.
mikekchar 7y ago
I like Japanese bread, but I've still yet to see a good baguette in 10 years of living here :-) I'm absolutely certain they exist in some of the big cities, but you have to know where to go. There is a bakery called Chambord that has a have decent baguette, but it drives me crazy because they refuse to bake them before about noon.

jbay808 7y ago

Agreed. The bread from bakeries in Japan are the best I've had anywhere; they definitely have a "bread culture" of their own and take it very seriously, and it seemed like almost every bakery in Tokyo was producing bread of remarkable quality. On the other hand, the bread at supermarkets in Japan usually was just white sandwich bread and little else.

deleted 7y ago

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SECProto 7y ago

I think you missed the point of the grandparent comment. It referred specifically to what "the average person thinks [is] a baguette". I love Japanese baked goods, lots of super light fluffy bread, great pastries. But crusty, fresh baguette is not something I saw much in three years of living in Japan. Every supermarket had bread in a bag that was called バゲット and looked like baguette — but every one got the texture all wrong. Just like there are places (Asian groceries, etc) to get good tofu in North America, I'm sure there are places to get good baguette in Japan. But the average person would think of what they can get in their local supermarket, which is decidedly not-good.

mikekchar 7y ago

I like Japanese bread, but I've still yet to see a good baguette in 10 years of living here :-) I'm absolutely certain they exist in some of the big cities, but you have to know where to go. There is a bakery called Chambord that has a have decent baguette, but it drives me crazy because they refuse to bake them before about noon.