If a dog walks, it will hit a stick, and if a person walks, it will hit a delicious food. Taking a stroll around is not only a pleasure to enjoy the cityscape and scenery, but it is also a pleasure to meet delicious foods that can only be found there. It's a once-in-a-lifetime meeting, so when I buy it, I often have a lot of bags in my hand.

While strolling around Kagurazaka, I found a Japanese sweets shop "Baikatei" with a nice atmosphere. The flag in front of the shop has the words "Ayu tempura monaka". …Hmm! ?? Ayu tempura? Is it in the middle of ayu-shaped tempura? Or is it in the middle of the tempura flavor of sweetfish? In the first place, was it something to make tempura in the middle?

Various questions come to my mind. Well, I'm curious!

If you're curious, the Eating Editorial Department is the place to try. I decided to buy it and taste it.


■ I entered Umekatei


Japanese sweets are lined up in the small store. Dorayaki, sakuramochi, etc. are lined up in the freshly made Daifuku and Kusa Mochi, and you will be distracted. Everything looks beautiful and delicious ... When I went to the back, there was "Ayu tempura monaka" that I was interested in.



■ What is Ayu tempura?


What kind of sweets are these? When asked, it was fried in the shape of ayu and stuffed with homemade bean paste. It seems that there are two types of bean paste, white bean paste and red bean paste. Cheeks, I see. Unlike fried buns, the bean paste is added later, so you can eat it without being oily.

In the middle of this, the 103-year-old predecessor devised about 60 years ago. The husband from Niigata Prefecture was born and raised near the Uono River, and he was familiar with the Yana, a mechanism for catching river fish. When my husband was taken prisoner in Siberia, he remembered the sweetfish that he could get in his hometown of Uono River and wanted to eat sweetfish sweets.

Like the sweetfish itself, which is sometimes given the word "scented fish" because of its good fragrance, it is a famous confectionery that won the Minister's Award at the Japanese sweets competition during the tempura of sweetfish, which is characterized by its fragrant scent. I definitely want to eat this! I bought it.

I also bought another signboard product of the store, "Ukigumo". Tehehe.


■ I tried it

I decided to take it back to the editorial department and try it immediately. We also have green tea, and we are all set. First of all, from the middle of the sweetfish tempura. The fragrant scent already tickles the nose from the state of the outer bag. Hmmm, good scent!


When I cut it, the slim body is full of red bean paste from the head to the tail. First of all, when you try the Ogura bean paste, the fragrant scent is transferred to the bean paste and you can fully enjoy the scent. It is an elegant bean paste with a firm sweetness. Shiroan also has a nice scent, but it may be a little less sweet.


During the process, after stuffing the bean paste, let it sit for about 10 hours to let it blend in, and during that time, the scent seems to transfer to the bean paste. Carefully handmade beans that are carefully selected for both Ogura and Shiro bean paste are cooked from scratch at the store. The frying oil is also a blend of domestic rapeseed oil and rice oil. It is a gem that you can feel the commitment!

■ Umekatei Another signboard, floating clouds?


Next, I will have a floating cloud. This is a sweet made by baking meringue in an oven and sandwiching Ogura bean paste inside. When you put it in your mouth, the gentle sweetness of the meringue and the firm sweetness of the bean paste are just neutralized, making it a good salted plum. The texture of the meringue, which is crispy but crumbles, is exquisite.


Both were elegant Japanese sweets that go well with green tea. If you bring this as a souvenir, you will surely get a glimpse of it. It's in the midst of something unusual, but it's a dish you'll want to remember as a famous confectionery in Kagurazaka.