Asia Is For Lovers: Dominique Ansel Bakery in Jingumae AKA We Ate Cronuts!

One of the most fun things about living in Tokyo is amazing variety of things I have access to. Obviously there are tons of delicious Japanese foods and beautiful Japanese goods, but coming from a small town it's a surprise just how many international things I have access to. There are branches of American stores in Tokyo that don't even have locations in my home state, so every once in a while I can get ahold of something my friends and family back home can't.

Last Friday Raku and I went to the Dominique Ansel Bakery to finally find out what the cronut craze is all about. Just in case you're not as obsessed with food as I am, Dominique Ansel has a bakery in NYC and invented a hybrid between a donut and croissant that became an insane craze where people would line up for hours to get their hands on one. I don't know what the response was like in other places, but imitations started popping up around Tokyo and then in June this year they opened a location here. Japan loves to go crazy over trends, so we waited a few months but finally thought the time was right to try it out.

The whole bakery is adorable and sells a great selection of creative, beautiful, and delicious looking treats. We only bought the cronuts to go (limit: 2 per person), but they have seating on the first floor for the bakery and a cafe with a full menu on the second floor. We went on a weekday morning, just before lunch time and I don't know if it was a fluke, but there was no line. We were able to walk right in and order and there were plenty of seats available if we'd wanted to stay. John was so taken with his cronut that he tried to go back and get another this weekend, but around 3:30 on a Sunday there was a line out the door and the cronuts had already sold out.

So, on to the important part: the cronut! Raku and I have tried two imitations in the past couple years, one from Mister Donut that was good, but absolutely nothing like the real one, and one from a shop in Tokyo station that was so bad I threw it away after one bite. Neither of them, or even the description of a cronut prepared me. Raku had hers first and texted me that it was a 'really intense experience.' I sort of scoffed and thought that she must not appreciate dessert as much as me, but she is totally right. John and I started eating ours standing up in the kitchen, but after a few bites I felt like I needed to sit down. They are so big and dense and there are so many flavors going on, it is exactly like she said - a really intense (delicious) experience. Apparently they do a different flavor every month, and this month was Strawberry Chocolate with Anis Sugar. I wasn't sure what I thought about that, but Dominique Ansel knows what he's doing - don't question the flavor just buy it and devour it, whatever it is. John and I both really like sweets, but this really stayed with us and we kept talking about it all weekend, in a way we normally wouldn't. It's totally worth the hype, even if you have to wait in line.