Mont Blanc

Was shopping at Muji for bikes (no, have not bought yet) around Yurakucho which is near Ginza area and so I decided to walk around the fringe of Ginza. Well, I’ve walked around Ginza, its nothing but tai tai goods like 5 stories of Hermes and what’s not. As you can see, I don’t really like it there. Anyway, came upon a small cafe called “Cafe & Cake”, which sells its own popular Mont Blanc pastries.

Now, french pastries are very popular in Tokyo, almost most of the cake shops or cafe are selling french pastries. Of course, this fits into the Japanese liking for small petite and beautiful things. Also, they are quite into, you know, classical European furnishing and style…

Back to the cafe, its a really tiny little room which can sit about 15 people with tiny tables and that’s the smoking section. The non-smoking section is like 2 tables only behind a glass door… so I opted for smoking (embarrassing.. I didn’t opt for it. I asked for kin’en and they gave me smoking).

Back to pastries, Mont Blanc, I must believe, is a french contraption. But if you look at it, it should have been call Mont Noir, although there is not such mountain in France, simply because the chestnut paste on top is brown and not white. So why call it Mont Blanc? Of course, it sounds nicer that “Chestnut paste squeezed out of toothpaste cake”. I theorized that the original french version must be topped with cream instead of chestnut (don’t know if French likes them), so its aptly called Mont blanc. But just like every other food that reaches Japanese shores, it became different when served here. Just like the ever famous croquette, which in original french cuisine has cream fillings not potatoes. Potatoe croquette is a Japanese invention.

Back to pastries again… Mont Blanc is like the food fashion in Tokyo. Every cafe or cake shop would sell a variety of Mont Blanc with different types of toppings like yam and seasame. Basically is just chestnut paste squeeze on top of some cream with a biscuit or cake base. Me not really a fan of chestnuts, but it doesn’t taste quite nice when the combination is right.

Now back to the cafe, so I ordered cinnamon cocoa, croque monsieur and mont blanc, of course. Thank goodness it has English words for the drinks, if not I will take forever to decipher those broken English Japanese words. But I must say that I am proud that I got croque monsieur right first time. The food menu does not have any English word, I looked at the picture and started to read off the Katakana “karokke mesyooru” (something like that)… hmmm.. that sounds like Croque Monsieur.

Well, I think think that the best croque monsieur is found in Delifrance back in old SGP. Anyway, after a while, I realised the whole room is full of only women! There is one guy, but he is sitting with a woman friend. So desu ne! I guess straight men won’t be seen dead by themselves or with other straight men friends, unless they have a female with them in a petite French cafe, eating Mont blanc in Ginza!

Remember I said that its a smoking room and that everyone is like squeeze into a tiny room? But I must say the decor is quite classical European, you do feel like you are in a cozy cottage. Well guess what, those woman around me are smoking one after another. At first it was quite tolerable, after all you get this everyone in Tokyo, but after a while I am near breathless and choking… time to go.

The bloody bill is 2,000 yen! Oh, I forgot that I was in Ginza and they don’t accept kado somemore.

I guess I went there quite early, because by the time I stepped out, there was a loooong queue of people waiting to get it. Didn’t I say that they like Mont blanc?