On the way to my 1st grade student’s house, I passed a wonderful French patisserie. The window display of a chouchon (pig) cake caught my eye. It was so cute; I was very tempted to buy it and share it with Katie during her lesson. But it was 3,500 yen and pretty large, so I held back.

Tokyo is strangely populated ethnic food places. Fashions in food launch a thousand new restaurants all offering variations on a theme. A few years ago it was Indian curry. Then Italian pasta. The trend now seems to be bagels.

When the fashion changes, many of the mediocre restaurants redecorate their menus hoping to catch the next trend, while the superlative shops keep serving up their finest. Which is why you can find a real patisserie in Sugamo, or an excellent Indian curry shop on the back streets of Nakameguro. I’m still looking for a really good bagel. Posted by kuri at July 03, 2001 07:58 AM