O2 Otobe [Mimi's World Tour]

Bakery: O2 Otobe 
Address: Ichinomiya 1-7-32 1F, Ise-shi, Mie Prefecture 
Website: http://www.shima-otobe.net
Style: Japanese 
Price: $$

As with a great many Asian businesses, Japanese bakeries are very trend-oriented. One of these trends, if not the most ubiquitous, is the Baumkuchen: a Japanese take on the German "tree" cake. O2 Otobe's take incorporates the rocky coastline of its home region and turns that into a rustic, organic cake that's a bit more creative than the usual perfect circles. That being said, I was disappointed that you can't buy individual pieces of that Rias Coastline Baumkuchen and the smallest started at 1100 yen; at least, not when I was there as there are photos proving the contrary online. I hate when that happens. -__-

Another slight disappointment was that they didn't have all that much in terms of individual treats besides a few slices of more elaborate, creamy tortes and small packets of cookies.

It's always difficult to walk around with a cake slice and not get it smushed, so I finally settled for one of their cream puffs (108 yen). I'm not quite sure how it happened, but I ended up trying a few cream puffs on my journey and this was, by far, the best of the bunch. Stiff and airy choux dough with a hard outside and an almost hollow inside stuffed with plenty of rich, fluffy cream. Then, dusted with a pinch of powdered sugar. Delicious inside and out!

At this rate, it really was a shame I didn't get to try that hyped up baumkuchen!

Rating: ***1/2