Tsujiri

Bakery: Tsujiri 
Address: 147 Dundas St W, Toronto ON
Website: http://tsujiri-global.com/
Style: Japanese
Price: $$-$$$

The recent explosion of Japanese businesses in downtown Toronto has seen the opening up of an array of exciting restaurants and dessert shops that I never thought I'd get the chance to try; one of these brand-new shops is Tsujiri, a Kyoto-based tea shop selling all things matcha who, of all places, decided to open their first location outside of Asia in... Toronto?

Tsujiri offers hot and cold drinks, ice cream sundaes and a few pastries; all is located -- with prices -- on a sign outside the store. The selection of pastries, however, is small, smaller than what their website features. At the time of purchase, there were two on the menu: matcha macarons ($2.50) and cream puffs ($2.75) with a stuck-on picture advertising matcha crepe cake ($8!?). The amazing-looking matcha opera cake has a "coming soon" sign taped on top of it...

 More fond of cream puffs than macarons, I decided to give this one a go: a choux puff that may not look too unique on the outside besides a generous dusting of green tea powder. Crunchy on the outside and airy on the inside, this swoon-worthy baby is a flavour bomb that sends you straight to matcha heaven. Knowing that Japanese baked goods always fare well on my site, I knew from the get-go that this would be good. I didn't realize it would blow my mind. The first bite you get a bit of dough and an outer layer of plain whipped cream. Then you hit the jackpot: an intensely green matcha whipped cream centre and lots of it, so much that it bursts onto your place and you want to lap it up with your tongue. Matcha and whipped cream. It doesn't get much better than that, except maybe that it's also amazing matcha: flavourful and rich. Oh yeah.... *-*  (Too bad there just isn't more to try!) 

UPDATE: With Tsujiri's small Canada-wide expansion - with stores now in three (possibly four) provinces - their sweet selection has decidedly, finally increased. I somehow feel that the Toronto locations, Alberta locations (who offer stamp cards) and those in Vancouver are independently run and operated and thus the selection of cake seems to be similar, but not identical. This matcha cream roll is from their Edmonton location, while I had a double fromage cheesecake from their North York location and yuzu rare cheesecake from Richmond - all delicious, but I still think the cream puffs are the best... and I think those happen to not be around anymore?

Rating: ***1/2