Do you eat bread or rice for breakfast?
This is a question you will hear quite a few times if you live in Japan.
Although Japan is famously known for its rice, there are many kinds of bread that were invented in Japan. To give a few examples of savory bread, we have the curry-filled bread, and Mentaiko hard bread (Mentaiko is spicy seasoned fish eggs that are popular in Japan). It has been increasingly gaining popularity in recent years. As for dessert bread, we have cream-filled bread, Melon bread (well, it doesn’t contain a melon, though. It just looks like a melon) and, the red bean paste-filled bread: An-pan. Wherever you buy it, if it is An-pan, you are guaranteed a great flavorful experience.
Hi! I’m Nazuna from Osaka, Japan.
Like I said, any An-pan is a good An-pan, but there is such bread as a top-notch delicacy An-pan. In this article, I’m going to introduce the greatest An-pan I’ve come across in my hometown, Osaka.
This is the shop which sells the An-pan ↓
It is called “Kokoro ni amai An-pan ya” (こころにあまい あんぱんや), which literally means “An-pan bakery to indulge your heart”.
The biggest feature of the shop is that they sell many different types of An-pan. For instance, one of them is filled with normal red bean paste, while, others are filled with chestnut paste, sweet potato paste. There is also a type of An-pan that looks like a melon-bread.
The bread that is lined up in the showcases is made in the bakery, and if you’re lucky you can get some freshly baked bread.
My recommendation is the “Osaka An-pan” which you can only buy in Osaka. The side of the bread is covered with sesame seeds, and on the center of the surface the letter “大阪（Osaka)” is stamped on neatly. That’s not the end of it though! Not only is it pretty, but it is delicious at the same time. You can enjoy a bun with red bean paste mixed with walnuts inside. The walnut gives a great addition both to the texture and the flavor.
This store is located in “Shin-Umeda Shokudogai (新梅田食道街)” in Umeda. Umeda is one of the biggest tourist attractions and has a lot of stations, so it’s very easy to visit. If you have a chance to visit Osaka, why not have a quick stop to snack for some delicious sweet bread? You can also try these awesome An-pans at Kobe and Nara, as the shop is actually a franchise. However, you can only buy “Osaka An-pan” in Osaka, so if that’s what you are looking for, be sure to visit Osaka.
That’s it for this article and I hope you enjoyed it! If you’re sweet-toothed or even if you aren’t, definitely give the bread a try, because its sweetness might be a little bit different compared to sweets in your country. Next up is about “Melon-bread”; which is undoubtedly in the Top 5 Sweet Bread of all time in Japan.