Cheery blossom buns!

Oops, I meant to type Cherry blossom but the typo seems appropriate to some extent. Eating the cherry blossom bun made me feel cheerful, um right. This morning I had some an-pan bread presented to me by a student. It is from KIMURAYA, the shop known for inventing an-pan, or in English, bean paste bread. A small bun is typically filled with red bean paste. Nowadays they come in a variety of flavors. Purple sweet potato paste, red bean and salted pickled cherry blossom and red bean paste, yuzu (Japanese citron) paste...and more! The unique marriage of salty pickled cherry blossoms and the smooth red bean paste was surprisingly good. When you're in Japan next time, why don't you head over to Ginza to grab yourself one or two of these?! BEWARE: many a-foreigner has been deceived by an-pan (red bean paste bread) unaware that it was just that - RED BEAN PASTE and not chocolate. So if you're looking for chocolate, you might have to look somewhere else.

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update: my student told me she is friends with the daughter of the founder of Kimuraya! What a small world it is!