Two Weeks of Eating in Japan, Chapter 11.

In rainy Nara, we saw cute deer mingling with tourists, beautiful temples, and the most incredible, eerie walk up a mountain, past crooked gravestones, to the Ki’i shrine, in the misty dusk of a drying day. This was the day that we ate a sushi lunch at the perfect moment, sitting in the window of Izasa-Nakatani-hompo Yumekaze-hiroba, eating the local dish of Kakinoha Zushi, as the rain fell hard outside.

Earlier that day, I’d succumbed to a temptation of mine that had been digging at me all vacation. If you pass any bakery in Japan, you’ll see Mont Blanc, a popular Parisian pâtisserie of chestnut purée shaped like vermicelli noodles and arranged in a conical shape, topped off with whipped cream and often set upon a tart or sponge base. Jay Rayner introduced them to me in his book, “My Last Supper”, but they have been venerated in Japan long before this, since the Thirties. I was more intrigued to try them, rather than needing to through F.O.M.O.-addled desperation. I’m not a huge fan of chestnut, but then again, if they’re in every shop window in every city here, then they have to be good, right?

Soon after alighting at Nara we stopped into a bakery for caffeine and I saw them there, their little beige peaks calling out to me. My tempting-looking Mont Blanc was gift wrapped to a ridiculous degree and off we went. I had hoped to have demolished it in the stunning Yoshikien Garden we were making a beeline for, but their draconian no food or drink policy meant that I ate it on a bench outside some public toilets nearby. Hardly a fitting way to enjoy such a sumptuous dessert.

It was nice. The chestnut purée was very sweet and overwhelmed everything else, including the moist sponge base that provided welcome relief from its topping. Then again, as The European will attest to, I am a sucker for sugar but even I felt this was a little too much and felt that more could be offered by in terms of complexity. The chestnut taste itself was great; it was not too overwhelming and softened with notes of toffee. I discarded the layers of gift wrap and ventured into the garden, determined to try more Mont Blanc, in case there were better ones out there, not because I needed another. Alas, with the discovery of 10-Yen pancakes and Japan’s crazy doughnut scene, this never happened.