Japan Diaries: Pablo Mini Tarts & Jack In The Donuts

Japan Diaries: Pablo Mini The Cheese Tart and Jack In The Donuts in Tokyo (Akihabara) Japan. Visited January 2019.

In Japan if I ever walked past anything that smelt good, I had it in my hands within minutes. This happened when I walked past Pablo Mini and Jack in the Donuts. No regrets.

Pablo Mini The Cheese Tart: Around the corner from Akihabara train station, there is a yellow brick store decorated with fake grass on the roof. This is the first brick & mortar store for Pablo Mini. Inside dozens of freshly baked tarts lined the shelves. Flavours included original (also known as plain), matcha, chocolate and strawberry. 

The seasonal specials were the sweet potato and caramel flavours and we watched a man delicately place red beans on the matcha/red bean flavour . One tart cost starts from 220 yen each but of course Hai and I got a 6 pack box to share.

I loved chocolate and original. The pastry is buttery and flaky; and the filling is smooth and had that unique creamy texture that only the Japanese can achieve. Japanese milk is so good, I don't understand how they achieve it. They must massage their cows daily.

Jack In The Donuts: Located near the famous Akihabara's Yodabashi Camera store, is this cute donut store. The shop front caught my eyes first, with thirty types of pastries lined up in abundance. They had classic ones, mochimochi (chewy) ones, cronuts, custard filled ones and "healthy" tofu ones. I didn't bother with a tofu one as I was on holidays, dammit. 

It was my first time trying a mochimochi one - it had a crisper exterior but inside was soft and chewy. I was able to pull the donut back from my mouth like stringed cheese. 

I wouldn't be able to find this type of thing back home in Australia. I also had the premier chocolate donut, topped with nuts and icing sugar. Bloody delicious

Dessert Heavan at Bay Vista Parramatta

Bay Vista Parramatta at Altitude Building, 1/330 Church St, Parramatta NSW 2150

Eleven weeks ago until the end of the year means I have around eleven more posts to blog. And I am starting to feel as though I am finally making a dent into my backlog.

And I also feel satisfied when I tick through my 'To Blog' list, even though I am exhausted from staying up to blog before the week is up.

Like today. I did a 10 hour working day on a Monday. A Monday. Officially the worst day of the week; and on Mondays I have to start work at 7.30am.

So tonight I can home at 7pm and immediately had a twenty minute nap, feeling distraught that I was already this tired on a Monday, then when I woke up I had some cheese and some boring brown rice with meat. I had to wash the dishes, pack my lunch, clean up after myself and do some mundane adult activities.

Now I am sitting here, writing this up. And my mouth is salivating at the desserts I ate a few months ago at Bay Vista. This was my first visit here and I remember how excited I was to study the extensive menu. And when the desserts came out in huge portions I remember cheering with my bestie friends Betty, Jaye and Erin. From memory (as the menu always changes at Bay Vista) we had ordered the Chocolate pecan pie with a side of cornflakes, vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce. Jaye had this magnificent ice cream bowl with caramel sauce and banana, and Betty ordered waffles topped with apple crumble with extra vanilla ice cream. Then we also had berry shakes, milkshakes and soy lattes to accompany the food.

And I remember specifically that this food, gave me comfort and an escape. It just reminded me that sometimes all you need is some good cake. Work is supposed to be a means to a life (a life outside of work), it gave me an excuse to hang out with my friends who just wanted to not care about their diets for a few hours, and it reminded me that I am lucky enough to go out and experience nights like this, even though right now I am here in my PJs blogging (and watching my husband pack his lunch for work tomorrow, bless him).

Anyways today is a short blog post, here to just reminisce some dessert from Bay Vista. Sometimes the photos I took are enough to convince people that the food here was delicious!

Hopefully I can get some good rest tonight and be ready for another 10 hour work day tomorrow. At least I can find some comfort in the fact that it won't be a Monday.

Patissez introduces: The Freakshow Milkshake

Patissez introduces: The Freakshow Milkshake! Patissez at Shop 2/21 "The Lawns" Bougainville St. Manuka, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 2603.
Photos taken on my Nikon D60 Sigma 30mm lens.

In the heart of sleepy Canberra, with majestic trees, wide open roads, peaceful parks and slow cars, there lies a small cafe that happens to serve these epic FREAKSHOW milkshakes.
Word spreads fast in Australia, and Canberra's Patissez found themselves featured on national TV that led to a huge amount of visitors flocking to their door.

The hype is all about their signature Freakshow Milkshakes. These passionate owners home-bake all the food components the night before and they have a couple of hours sleep per night. Their efforts are worthwhile - milk, popcorn, Nutella, pretzels, fudge, marshmallows, brownies and whip cream are in these mason jars to create four amazing flavours.
The popularity has really soared in the 7 short weeks Patissez has been opened. These days the owners have to take table bookings in person (as they haven't even had time to set up a phone line yet!) and the wait can be from two to four hours. Even take-away orders can be up to a two hour wait. Usually by 1.30pm they run out of ingredients or have such a huge back log of queuing customers they have to regrettably turn customers away.

Being the foodie I am I had to see this place for myself! Living in Sydney, it was a three hour drive to Canberra. With all our knowledge, I planned to leave the area by 6am and get there by 9am and organised activities for the wait. We arrived at 9.30am Saturday morning - booked a table for eight and were told it would be a minimum two hour wait, just as I had thought.
So me and my friends had our 'first' breakfast and went down to the park to play frisbee and kick the ball around while our stomachs grumbled again slowly.

We went back to the cafe four hours later and found out we were next on the list! By 1.30pm we finally were seated. Sitting down never felt so satisfying. The people at Patissez served us and were so nice and apologetic, especially when they broke the news to us they had run out of the 'Muddy Pat' milkshake (no more ingredients!).
We were not fazed though - we kept on ordering. We ordered the three other milkshakes - The Nutty Pat (warm salted caramel shake with popcorn), French Vanilla (cold real vanilla bean shake with caramelised puff pastry) and the Nutella & Salty Pretzel (cold Nutella shake with salty pretzels).  For Lunch we had The Big Pat and the Cheeky with extra mushrooms.

Well, the photos says its all - I really don't need to describe how good the milkshakes were, as they taste as good as they look! Each Freakshow is $9.50 and I think that is a fair price for the size and the freshness and creativity put into each shake. The presentation was enough to drool over. My friends and I scoffed down our lunches then took our time savoring each sip from our milkshakes. My Nutella and Salty Pretzel shake was rich and delicious. I enjoyed dipping my pretzels into my whipped cream. Hmm.

A few minutes later me and my friends went through a joint 'food coma' and 'sugar crash' experience and we sat in silence gazing into the distance appreciating our satisfying meal. Good food and good company is always a good combination. With our stomachs full and holding on to our takeaway cakes, we drove the three hours back to Sydney to share our stories about our epic Freakshow adventures in sleepy Canberra.