Seven sweet-tooth satisfiers in Japantown
Lurking about Japantown are the sushi scavengers and the ramen wranglers. However, somewhere below the radar are the dessert desperados. They are a slower-paced subspecies probably due to the frequency of sugar-induced comas from their partaking of goodies offered at all the wonderful sweets shops in the neighborhood. The Japanese certainly love their sweets. Take a look at a vintage Yasujiro Ozu home drama in which a pivotal character always seems to devour a slice of strawberry shortcake at which point another character gazes at the act with envy. Such quietly simmering jealousy can now become a distant memory if you assign yourself pastry patrol strolling through Japantown.
On the Sutter Street side of the cobblestone-covered Buchanan Mall is the famous Benkyodo Company where they offer an appetizing display of colorful manju and mochi. Manju is a traditional confection made from flour, rice powder or buckwheat, filled usually with sweet red bean or white lima bean paste. Mochi is manju’s no-frills cousin, a doughy rice cake, sometimes sweet and with no filling. The Okamura brothers carry on the family business of hand-making these goodies daily, a tradition that has endured for over a century. The dorayaki (pancake) is particularly delicious, but my personal favorite is the peanut butter manju, which has to be individually wrapped to preserve its freshness. The other side of Benkyodo is a small luncheonette with a decent egg salad sandwich and other diner fare.
Coffee crunch cake at Yasukochi's Sweet Stop (Photo: Ed Uyeshima)
Across Sutter and hidden away in the Super Mira Market is Yasukochi's Sweet Stop, a tiny jewel of a bakery that serves their famous coffee crunch, a yellow cake layered with whipped cream and covered with crunchy coffee-flavored bits. An amazingly tasty confection, it’s much lighter than you would expect and dangerously addictive. But so are the lemon napoleons, the rolled chocolate cakes filled with either strawberry or mocha cream, and just about everything else served at their neatly displayed counter. Yasukochi's reminds me of a first-class Tokyo Ginza bakeshop, and I’m sure Yasujiro Ozu’s characters would have been regulars here.
Once you cross Post Street, Japan Center offers not one but two creperies - the cheekily named Belly Good Café & Crepes in the central Kintetsu Mall and the popular Sophie’s Crepes in the mall’s western wing, the Kinokuniya Building. Both offer the thin, crispier Japanese variety of crepes rolled up in a cone in order to accommodate the overflow of fillings. The variety of fresh fruit and sweetened ingredients offered is rather mind-boggling when you see all the choices up on the wall. The crepe concoctions at both places are similarly executed and quite tasty, although Sophie’s appears to draw the more devoted following. Japan Center offers a couple of other sweet tooth options - Murata’s Café Hana serving several exotic ice cream flavors, truffles and bubble teas, as well as May’s Coffee Shop, which bakes taiyaki, the fish-shaped specialty waffles filled with red bean paste.
Jubili Frozen Yogurt & Cereal (Photo: Ed Uyeshima)
Down about two blocks from Japan Center on Fillmore Street is a newcomer to the neighborhood, Jubili Frozen Yogurt and Cereal, one of the many fro-yo shops popping up almost everywhere in the Bay Area. However, this clean, sleek place has a particularly Asian beat to it, even if Italian-style soft-serve frozen yogurt is actually being served. Just voted Best of the Bay in the SF Bay Guardian, Jubili offers low-calorie yogurt usually in three flavors (including their tart-flavored original) with toppings that include all the standard options plus mochi bits and crumbled Cap’n Crunch, the latter of which gives rise to the name of the establishment. From traditional manju to health-conscious yogurt, the dessert desperados can take heart in Japantown as their options are numerous and far-ranging.
LOCATIONS: (1) Benkyodo Company, 1747 Buchanan Street, (415) 922-1244; (2) Yasukochi's Sweet Stop, 1790 Sutter Street, (415) 931-8165; (3) Belly Good Café & Crepes, 1737 Post Street, (415) 346-8383; (4) Sophie’s Crepes, 1581 Webster Street, (415) 929-7732; (5) Murata’s Café Hana, 1737 Post Street, (415) 567-9133; (6) May's Coffee Shop, 1737 Post Street, (415) 345-1046; (7) Jubili Frozen Yogurt and Cereal, 1515 Fillmore Street, (415) 292-9955.
Japantown's Buchanan Mall (Osaka Way) (Photo: Ed Uyeshima)
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Seven sweet-tooth satisfiers in Japantown
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