One thing we definitely have plenty of in Japan is sweets, be it cookies, chocolates, ice cream or cakes. From sakura flavored treats to mochi-infused ice cream, you don’t have to look too hard to find a dessert that captures your fancy, whatever your mood happens to be. Interestingly, one trend we seem to be seeing in recent years is the increasing popularity of Japanese confections in the Middle East, the U.A.E. in particular.
Now, it’s quite common these days to see a popular snack or dessert from one country become a huge hit in another part of the world, but one Japanese treat that apparently has been acquiring a growing number of fans in the U.A.E. is not the latest dessert fad to hit Tokyo, nor is it created from a unique and unexpected combination of Japanese ingredients. It’s a conventional, albeit tasty, Western-style cookie, and what’s more, these cookies have been around here in Japan for over four decades!
Naturally, we bought a box and tried them to see what makes them so special!
The cookies in question are made by Japanese confection company YOKU MOKU and they’ve been so well-received in the United Arab Emirates that their popularity has been the topic of a recent article on the Mainichi Newspaper’s website. The Tokyo-based confectioner has been in business since 1969, and according to the article, they opened their first shop in Abu Dhabi in 2010. It seems sweets are as much an obsession in the U.A.E. as in Japan, and the cookies have since then sold extremely well in the region, despite the fact that transporting them there makes them cost roughly two and a half times more than they do in Japan. Currently, YOKU MOKU has 79 shops overseas, 19 of which are in the U.A.E., in addition to the roughly 190 shops they have in Japan.
But that’s enough information for now — let’s go and get our hands on some of their famous cookies, shall we?
▼ Here we were at the YOKU MOKU shop at the Tokyu Toyoko Departmetn Store in Shibuya.
▼ Their popular cigar-shaped cookies, which have been such a success in the U.A.E., were prominently displayed, but they had various other delectable looking items on offer as well.
▼ We bought the cookies and hurried home to try them!
▼ The package came neatly wrapped in YOKU MOKU’s original paper and ribbon.
▼ The cookies came in a beautiful blue can, which should make them lovely gifts, and if you’re taking them home as a souvenir, they’ll take up some space, but you can carry them in a suitcase without getting them crushed.
▼ It was time to open the can!
▼ The carefully packaged cookies finally appeared after much unwrapping.
▼ The can we bought contained 18 cookies, priced at 1,296 yen (US$10.72).
▼ These cigar-shaped cookies are called … “Cigares”. (Okay, it’s not exactly an original name, but the cookies more than make up for that fact with their sleek design and neat packaging.)
▼ We were absolutely ready to taste the cookies!
▼ We opened one of the individually wrapped cookies.
▼ The form of the cookie was exquisite. It really is shaped liked a cigar!
▼ You can see from above that it’s a thin sheet of cookie delicately rolled up.
▼ We took a bite, and this is how the cross-section looked in the middle of the cookie.
When we tried the cookie, it was rich yet mild without being too sweet and tasted delightfully of butter and eggs. It had a texture that wasn’t exactly hard and brittle, but not as soft as the typical soft-type cookies either, which we thought matched the buttery flavor well. Our impression was that it would be particularly good with a cup of milk tea or chai. Now, whether or not you would go crazy over these cookies is up to your taste, but we can easily understand if many people in the U.A.E. took a huge liking to them, since they’re certainly tasty and pretty to look at.
Hopefully, we’ll be seeing many more such confections made available in various countries, because in our opinion, sweetness spread around the world is always a good thing!
Reference: The Mainichi Newspaper official website (Japanese)
Photos: © RocketNews24