Bleclair [Mimi's World Tour]

Bakery: Bleclair
Address: 10 Hidenincho, Tennoji-ku, Osaka (inside Tennoji MIO)
Website: http://www.realpasco.jp
Style: Japanese 
Price: $$ 

Similar to Osaka Namba and Umeda stations, there's an intricate network of underground shopping areas in and around Tennoji station. Unlike the former two, however, the Tennoji underground complex has a pretty intense concentration of bakeries and sweet shops that very nearly make your jaw drop; that is, if you manage to locate them amidst the confusing layout and hordes of quickly passing people.

The first I visited was Bleclair, which seems to be an offshoot of the Real Pasco bakery group (though I can't find anything on the website indicating this to be the case, but at the same time it's not like I can read Japanese) that also includes multinational bakery magnate Paul, which is in the Tennoji station corridor and, as such, is a hectic, fully-stocked bakery featuring many of the usual culprits along with a few unique items; some bakeries tend to focus on more pastry-like items, but Bleclair tends to leans towards doughy variations of sweet buns, many of which I didn't have the opportunity to decipher (mostly because of the constant flow of people).

One such item was the sweet butter ring (151 yen). I had it described as such in my preliminary notes as such, but was it really called that in store? I highly doubt it and yet the name is bit elaborate for something off the top of my head.... Nevertheless, this somehow looked Portuguese to me with its golden dough twisted and then shaped into a lopsided ring and sprinkled simply with powdered sugar -- all it was really missing was the coconut! ;) Ever so slightly flaky and mildly sweetened, this was like a fusion between a pastry and a sweet bread like challah. Rip-apart good and a good change from some of the more standard Japanese baked goods.

Rating: ***