Can o' Bread for Breakfast! ｜ パンの缶詰の朝食！

"What's for breakfast?" This is a very common question throughout all parts of the modern world. I think, however, that one of the most uncommon answers must be, "A can of bread from the vending machine." This is exactly what I had for breakfast yesterday, though! Here is a vending machine I found in Inokashira Park (井の頭恩賜公園) in Kichijōji (吉祥寺). The products in this machine are called "Pan no Kanzume" (パンの缶詰), literally, "Bread Canned Goods" from a company called Okaneya. So I found this machine; what's the first thing I do? Buy one of course, what else? (^_^) There are four kinds of bread along the bottom for ¥480 (currently about $4.50 USD) each, and along the top, bread "sticks" (which appear to be more like crackers) for ¥250 each.

I chose the Chocolate Chip Bread (チョコチップパン), which is on the bottom left in the title photo; the other three options being Strawberry Bread, Milk Bread and Caramel Bread. All of these are apparently from from Okaneya's "Bonne Chance" product line. The can opens with a pull-tab and there was a loud pop-hiss sound when the can opened which seemed pretty promising, at least I knew it wasn't likely to be dry.

Here's what the product looks like inside the can-- the bread sits upside down in the can so what we're seeing here is the underside, and its standard bakery parchment paper wrapping.

 

Unfortunately I was not able to get the bread out of the can in on piece. I got the bread about halfway out, and I couldn't manage to free it from the can without getting it stuck in the rim where the pop-top lid used to be. Here's the bottom half of the bread with the parchment paper removed. Not bad eh?

So moving on to the eating part. I was not expecting much. After all, I just bought canned bread from a vending machine. How good could it be, right? Well, very surprisingly good, to be honest! The bread is soft, tender and moist but not at all mushy or overly "spongy." The texture is very similar to Italian Panettone. There is cocoa marbled throughout the bread and mini chocolate chips mixed in. I kinda figured this part might be overwhelming to the point where this experienced moved away from being breakfast and into the dessert category, but that was not the case at all. The only perceivable down-side is that people who really love their bread to have a nice crust would be disappointed, but luckily I am not too picky about that, and such a person would probably know better than to expect that from a canned good anyway. I have had a few experiences in which I purchased "fresh" bakery goods from a coffee shop that were not as good as this!

All this aside, this stuff can't be good for you, right? Well, I suspected as much and so I read the ingredients. Again I was really surprised! The ingredients included several different kinds of flour (including panettone flour which would explain the texture), milk powder, yeast, niacin, chocolate and cocoa! Then the last two in the list; not preferable, but expected, I would say, in a canned good like this-- Sorbitol and some kind of sodium-based preservative (I couldn't read the kanji for this one-- sorry about that). I thought it was probably sodium benzoate, but later I looked up the kanji for sodium benzoate and it wasn't that. I guess I should have photographed the list. That's pretty good I think! The product needs some kind of preservative after all-- the expiration date on the bottom was July 2017.

The verdict-- I would totally eat this again!I would love to try the other flavours. "In fact, what other kinds are available," I wondered. I looked up the company's homepage and found a large selection of bread AND also wine! They also make (not surprisingly) emergency food store items and supplies. Here's a link to their product line-up; pretty damned impressive! I also discovered that Okaneya has been in business since 1936 (昭和11年)! I guess they know what they're doing by now.

After yesterday's experience, I'm now thinking about trying an experiment-- see if it's possible to subsist solely on items purchased from a vending machine for a full day. Stay on the lookout for that in an upcoming post; I'm pretty sure I'm going to do it at some point.

OWLS! / 梟！

As I've been mentioning in recent posts, my good friends were visiting from Chicago last month. These two folks happen to really love owls, and so needless to say they were really interested in going to see them up-close-and-personal at one of Tokyo's many bird cafes. We chose the Tori no Iru Cafe (鳥のいるカフェ) in Asakusa (浅草) since we had spotted it while strolling around the previous day.

In order describe the experience, I feel like I need to break the whole experience into parts. Getting right to the point-- OWLS! Yeah, going to see owls up-close and being able to handle them is a pretty amazing experience! At a bird cafe, customers can pet, pick up and fully interact with owls! First off, they are adorable! Their big eyes and round bodies give them the impression of having come straight out of a fairy tale. I was really surprised by how soft and fluffy they are, and also by how accurately their feather patterns and colorations mimic the surrounding scenery of their native habitats. Something else I didn't expect is how calm and tame they were. I know they have certainly been trained by their handlers to live in the cafe and to be handled by customers, but being birds of prey I never thought they would be so interactive with humans. My friend Valery was especially good with them. One of the owls totally fell in love with her and was extremely overjoyed to let her pet him for quite a long time! Check this out!

Thanks to Valery Shuman for sending this precious video!

On the flip-side, the owls can, at times, be intimidating as well. I say this primarily because many of them are very large, and knowing that owls have astoundingly strong jaws, and could certainly break a human finger if provoked is enough to make customers feel a little bit wary of them when they appear to giving signals that they would rather we not touch them. None of the owls there were at all aggressive, though, so in the end it may have been my own apprehension that made me cautious.

Aside from the owls, there is another room in the cafe with many species of smaller birds, especially conures. There are also cockatiels, love birds and other species of parrots and beautiful rare and exotic birds with which I'm less familiar. I think it would be good for customers to know what they're in for before entering this room! It was fun at first, but to be honest, it quickly became a little bit overwhelming. The birds in that room are extremely friendly and very curious. Since they have free reign in that room and are eager to meet guests, visitors will find themselves literally covered in birds within minutes! I did have fun with this for a little while, but then I realized that for each bird you put back on its perch, two more take its place. I had to work swiftly to make myself bird-free and quickly make my way out of the room. It's not that I wouldn't go in again, but it's best in shorter time spans I think.

Moving on to other aspects of the experience-- the cafe. I have to admit that the cafe itself was not necessarily bad, but was not exactly what I expected. The interior is very small and although it's called a cafe, there are almost no places to sit and it would be almost impossible to enjoy refreshments of any kind. When the place is at full capacity, it feels extremely crowded and it's a little difficult to get close to the owls. They're definitely the main attraction and the owl room has an extremely small capacity. Going to Tori no Iru Cafe also differed a bit from my visit to Cat Cafe JaLaLa in that the staff was very hands-off and a little bit on the inattentive side.

Here's another video for you; one that I created

All in all, the experience was pretty awesome and has made me interested in visiting other bird cafes. I somehow get the feeling, however, that I most likely wouldn't pick Tori no Iru Cafe as my first choice of places. Don't get me wrong, the owls were totally kool and made for a very fun time! Probably the best part of my visit was seeing my friends get this unique chance to interact with these beautiful birds.

There are still a few more photos to be seen. Interested readers can follow this link to see more!

Tokyo Drifter: Asakusa

Sensōji Temple roof

The recent visit of my two long-time friends, Chicago-based DJ and producer Phonaut and Chicago-based Art Therapist Valery, offered a great opportunity to introduce some friends to my favourite city in the world. Since a visit Tokyo without seeing Asakusa (浅草) is, in my opinion, a visit that's incomplete, I made certain to take them there at the first opportunity. For this post, hopefully my readers won't mind if I keep my wordiness to minimum and instead let the images speak for themselves.

Sensōji Temple grounds

Sensōji Temple

Asakusa flavour

Sensōji Temple

Sensōji Temple grounds

View from the top of the Asakusa Culture and Tourism Center

Tokyo Sky Tree

Want to see more? Click here for the full album. Thanks for visiting!

[Photo of the Day] Almond Feuillantine KitKat!

via Instagram http://ift.tt/1vZdc6q

Wow! These are sooooo delicious! The chocolate has a rich cocoa flavour, and there's a lovely, subtle hint of almond. The chocolate also contains a tiny bit of liqueur to enhance the taste. Instead of the standard KitKat cookie, there's a light, airy, crispy crepe in the middle! Superb!