bakery
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It so happens that this past Saturday was kind of a big day for sweets lovers in Japan (well, at least for this writer). That’s right, June 20 was the much-anticipated grand opening of the Dominique Ansel Bakery, home of the original cronuts, in Tokyo’s Omotesando district.
For those of you who may not be into sweets, the cronut is a hugely popular baked creation the bakery is known for which can be described as a hybrid between a croissant and donut. Not surprisingly, stories of people forming long lines every morning at the New York City-based bakery for the cronuts and other delightful baked treats have reached Japan, and many sweets fans were ecstatic when it was announced that the shop would be opening in Tokyo. Not to miss out on the sugar-filled excitement, we were there bright and early on opening day, all psyched up to try the cronuts we had heard so much about!
Is it just me, or are cakes these days starting to look less and less… cakey? With all sorts of techniques, tools, and ingredients at their fingertips, it seems like bakers can now turn cake into pretty much anything, as we’ve seen before from this cake shop in Shinjuku, that sells cakes disguised as Chinese food (you can even learn to make a bowl-of-ramen cake yourself here).
Now, that same shop, called Maplies, has come out with yet another tricky treat that looks exactly like maguro-don, a rice bowl with slices of tuna sashimi on top!
Few who have not visited the country would ever imagine that Japan is practically overrun with bakeries. When people think of food in Japan, they usually think of things like rice, sushi and ramen, but the truth is, while Japanese supermarkets may not carry anywhere near as many varieties of bread as those in the West, dedicated bakeries can be found all over city centres, with pretty much every station, shopping mall and supermarket having its own shop or dedicated corner offering up freshly baked pastries, and the variety is astounding.
Check out this video to see 30 typical pastries available at Japanese bakeries.
Ah, Japanese bakeries. Rows and rows of delicious, fresh-baked treats ready for you to harvest—if you can decide among all the variety. And if you think choosing which bread to place on your tray is hard (I usually spend at least 5 minutes walking in circles with hungry tongs in hand), imagine how stressful it must be for part-time bakery staff who need to remember the names of every baked good in the store.
Luckily, Japanese web development company Brain Corporation has teamed up with the University of Hyogo to develop a POS system that uses a camera to instantly identify the kind of baked good customers have on their tray.
Check out the video below, it looks a lot more impressive than it sounds.
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