Panetteria Pane Pane [Mimi's World Tour]

Bakery: Panetteria Pane Pane
Address: 2 Chome-5-1 Nipponbashi, Chuo Ward, Osaka
Website: n/a 
Style: Japanese, Melon pan 
Price: $ 

A great many of my bakery visits in Japan involved a lot of research and route planning; randomly stumbling upon a bakery I wasn't expecting to find was a fairly rare occurrence, but one example was Pane Pane, a small, somewhat obscure stall near Kuromon Ichiba market selling melon pan and little bags of cookies. Having had quite a few melon pan on this journey, how could I pass up this opportunity to see how this one fared?

Pane pane sells three or four flavours of melon pan that are individually priced and all fall under the 200 yen mark. At the time of purchase, there was the standard criss-cross variety along with chocolate, milk (I believe) and strawberry (150 yen).

Seeing as it was strawberry season, I went with this cotton candy pink-coloured dome with its even melon crust dusted with a bit of granulated sugar. Inside, the dough was airy, but lacked the bubbly, slightly elastic dough I'd seen previously on some truly excellent melon pan; instead, it was a bit more foamy and the taste was reminiscent of the colour: a bit... artificial and yet strangely bland at the same time. Not the best I've had.

Rating: **1/2