Mast Brothers Chocolates, New York

Six months ago I couldn’t even spell ‘hipster’, but now I’ve been scorned by them, repeatedly, and bought their chocolate. Look, it’s Mast Brothers, “we’re so green we ship our beans by sailboat“. Seriously, what’s up with Brooklyn? Why is it that when we go into the tasting room / retail outlet of MB’s factory, […]

City Bakery, New York

Well-informed readers will no doubt understand the amusement value of this truly outrageous picture (for the rest of you the link will help a bit). Even funnier considering who I was talking to about it most recently, the windows above show a ballet studio. The only dancing at City Bakery is the ballet of butter […]

Aeschbach, Shiroganedai

Really, Shirogane has a nice feel. Very genteel. There are copper-covered spaceships everywhere, and up the streets on the northeast side of the main street, big, fancy buildings abound. And cat-themed delivery trucks. Aeschbach’s Japan store seems to be a franchise operation – and if I remember correctly, the woman working there was the same […]

Boissier, Yaesu

Boissier, the Daimaru Tokyo cafe-style outlet of a French patissier, is a place that I noticed in passing once when taking the elevator up to the Daimaru restaurant floor. You wouldn’t think it, but there are cafes on most of the intermediate floors too. And they (this one at least) are enormous. I was expecting […]

Salon du Chocolat, Isetan Shinjuku

Tokyo has nearly limitless capacity to delight, and to disappoint. I thought I was terribly clever for proposing a late-afternoon trip to Shinjuku Isetan and the 2010 Salon du Chocolat. This is a fabulous event – what is ostensibly a trade fair for the chocolate industry in Paris is transplanted and reimagined as a consumer […]

Oriol Balaguer, Shirokanedai

Well, this was previously recommended in much the same breath as Debailleul (and my sincere apologies that I didn’t share the goods with the recommender). Since I’ve concluded that Debailleul is almost worth the price, if you pick the right flavors (spicy ones, mostly), I’ve kept thinking of trying this also. After months of occasional […]