Miki Keiran is a shinise egg and dashimaki tamago (Kyoto-style rolled omelette) purveyor in the foodie’s paradise called Nishiki Market. Their dashimaki is the best and that is about all that they make. I noticed some buns for sale on top of the dashimaki showcase. These are an original anpan. Anpan is a popular Japanese sweet bun filled with bean paste. This being an egg shop, their bean paste is flavored with egg yolk. I decided to pickup a few.
An egg yolk filled anpan sounds really good, and ought to be, especially from a shinise like Miki Keiran. However, I was a little disappointed. It was by no means bad, but the combination has the potential to be quite amazing and it wasn’t. Too bad.
How did it taste?
The bread is soft and just average in taste as far as Japanese bread goes, the egg yolk glaze is quite nice, quite thick and sticky, and fragrant too. There are white (and a few black) poppy seeds adhered to the glaze at the bottom, to create the visual effect of a chestnut.
The filling is egg yolk and smooth and creamy white shiroan bean paste. If you didn’t know it was bean paste, you probably wouldn’t guess it by the taste or texture. The richness of the egg yolk appropriately comes to the forefront.
One variety of this anpan contains a chestnut, which is fine, but with the addition of the whole chestnut, the richness and delicacy of the egg yolk gets overpowered. I tried just the egg yolk bean paste mixture and it was very, very good.
In the end, I think that there is too much bread to filling and the presence of the chestnut muddled the taste.
This is one interesting confection to me and one that I would like to redesign! This anpan cost 150 yen, that is not expensive at all for any anpan in Japan. And, this is Nishiki Market. No one goes to Nishiki Market looking for a bargain! If there were tons more filling I think this would have worked better. Just double the price and double or triple the amount of filling and this anpan would be out of this world! I am not sure what to do about the chestnut but they definitely need one to offer one without the chestnut. This is a shinise egg shop, I think that they should focus on the egg aspect rather than try to make it conventional with a chestnut.
About Anpan
The meaning of anpan comes from ‘an’, anko bean paste and ‘pan’ the adopted word in Japanese for bread. This now ubiquitous confection was developed in 1875 by Yasubei Kimura, a samurai who had recently lost his livelihood as a result of the Meiji Restoration. This was a time of rapid Westernization of Japan but bread hadn’t really caught on in Meiji era Japan. Yasubei, in need of a livelihood based his confection on the traditional manju confection, replacing the mochi with bread but keeping the sweet bean filling. This proved a winning combination. Yasubei was recruited to make an imperial anpan for the emperor and his bakery thrives today in Tokyo’s Ginza shopping district.
About Miki Keiran
Miki Keiran was founded in 1928 and the Honten (Main Store) is located in the Nishiki Market. Miki Keiren also has stores in several department stores in Kyoto, Osaka and Tokyo. Miki Keiren only makes Kyoto-style dashimaki tamago omelettes for take out. Dashi means broth and much of Kyoto cuisine starts with broth. Miki Keiren uses the finest eggs for their omelettes but the dashi costs even more money than the eggs. That is Kyoto! Miki is a family name meaning ‘three trees’ and keiren means ‘chicken egg’.
Miki Keiren’s dashimaki is a must have for New Year’s in Kyoto. Kyotoites have to reserve theirs in advance and then they come to a different location on a nearby street away from the narrow Nishiki Market shopping street to pick theirs up at an appointed time a day or two before New Year’s. In Kyoto, dashimaki is serious business!
— Shop Photo and Map Coming Soon —
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First I thought this is Kuri-Manju,looks really delicious.
The backed manjus I like most have very thin crepe-dough and lot of filing, this is what would be great here too.I’m sorry to hear it wasn’t really yummy…
The stuffing, is this Kimi-An, Shiro-An with egg yolk? I have a recipe for Kimi-An, need to try with Manju- like this idea.
Your blog is always a inspiration for me, I already made a few things, tsukemono and a summer wagashi(this was white yokan with small green maple leaves and ayu, I made it in summer, wanted “cool feeling”)
Regards
Amato
PS. Do you know Kogepan? I’m totally in love with Kogepan Anime, its so cute…
oh this looks delicious! i’m loving it’s glossy golden exterior.