Apart from chocolate or biscuits, cake is another fav of mine when it comes to selecting souvenirs (omiyage) at NRT. I’d like to say that in the times I’ve travelled here, I’ve never come across any of these outside an airport. Prolly it’s just me. Heh.
This is 萩の月 (Hagi[1] no tsuki, or loosely meaning harvest moon) which is a soft sponge cake with custard in the middle, shaped like the full moon. The product is made by Sanzen, a confectioner in Sendai. A bit on the sweet side but it’s one of the loveliest cakes I’ve ever tasted. As with any omiyage, the cakes are packed beautifully with the box wrapped and tied, and on opening the box, each cake comes individually boxed.
The whole thing was so pretty that I kept the boxes after I was done with them.
The 萩の月 I bought had eight cakes in the box. I think there is also one that is a box of ten.
And you may have heard of this one – Tokyo Banana. I have thus far bought two types – the plain one and the one that looks like a, err… giraffe.
They are basically banana-shaped sponge cakes with banana custard in them. The ones I bought both have caramel banana custard. Again, beautifully packed in a box with each individual cake in a plastic wrap. I like them cold so I tend to put them in a fridge on opening.
These cakes can be kept for a bit, thanks to the way they are packed, but I won’t recommend keeping them for months. Unless you wanna do a Homer.
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[1]萩 (hagi) or the bush clover (lespedeza) is a symbol for autumn, and is the official flower for Sendai.
