It’d be hard to find a sweet as girthy as this one!
Dorayaki is a traditional Japanese sweet made from two pancake-like layers with red bean paste in the middle. It’s simple but delicious, and is even loved by robot cats from the future.
We’ve tried many different kinds of dorayaki here at SoraNews24, including wet dorayaki and giant dorayaki, but this time we turned our attention to another variant — nama dorayaki, or “raw” dorayaki.
Fret not though! Raw dorayaki may seem like a bunch of uncooked ingredients, but there is nothing unfinished about this sweet treat. The dorayaki has almost a hamburger feel to it, with a huge amount of filling sandwiched between the two pancake layers. These dorayaki even come from Hannari Kyoto Seijuan, a sweets restaurant located in the home of Kyoto’s world class Japanese confectionary.
So it was with mild confusion that our Japanese-language reporter Yuuichiro Wasai came across them on a stall in Tokyo Station.
▼ The unappealing “raw” name mixed with the prestigious
“Hannari” name — what on Earth were these dorayaki?
The raw dorayaki came in a variety of flavours, including lemon cream, chocolate, and chestnut. Yuuichiro decided to go for a plain, a matcha, and a strawberry cream dorayaki. The dorayaki were 581 yen (US$5.30) each, or three for 1601 yen (US$14.60).
Yuuchiro got his dorayaki home, but as he went to open up his sweet treats, he noticed that the packaging wasn’t even closed at all — it was almost like a storage compartment that hadn’t been closed properly. It seemed the dorayaki filling was simply too thick to be able to be properly contained.
▼ That is quite the filling.
▼ On the left, the raw Hanari dorayaki, compared to a regular convenience store bought dorayaki on the right, to get an idea of how thick this filling is.
The dorayaki were all individually wrapped, so the fact that the outer packaging wasn’t closed wasn’t a huge deal, but it did make Yuuichiro think — surely they could have chosen different packaging to fit?
▼ Although perhaps showing off that their incredible size could not be held by a mere ordinary container was exactly the point.
The thick filling presented another problem when Yuuchiro pondered as to how he would eat his snack. Usually dorayaki is just picked up and eaten as is, but there was something about the size of the dorayaki that made Yuuichiro think he was eating a cake with his hands. Maybe he should go and grab a knife and fork?
▼ Nah. Hands it is!
So how did they taste?
In general, Japanese confectionaries are much milder in sweetness compared to Western counterparts, but you might think that the sheer volume of cream filling would make up for that here.
To be fair, the sweetness was a little stronger than usual, but still delicate enough to be considered Japanese, and the pancake layers were moist and delicious.
If you’re looking to spice up your regular dorayaki snack, these Hanari raw dorayaki are on sale in Tokyo Station until June 27. Look for the stall at the north transfer gate of the Tohoku/Joetsu lines, and the Hokuriku Shinkansen.
Don’t worry if you can’t make it though. There’s a whole world of dorayaki for you to try, including this terrifying human-face dorayaki.
Store information
Kyoto Seijuan (Limited time store) / 京都成寿庵（期間限定ショップ
Address: Inside Tokyo Station (in front of the north transfer gate for the Tohoku/Joetsu lines/Hokkaido shinkansen
東京駅構内（東京駅1階 東北・上越・北陸新幹線 北のりかえ口前）
Hours: 9:00a.m. – 20:00 p.m. (until June 27th)
Website
Images: SoraNews24
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[ Read in Japanese ]