Oni-ni-Kanabo 'Demon Roll' - Package

Oni ni Kanabo Mushi-pan Roll from Sentaro 京都 仙太郎 鬼に金棒
This confection is called Oni-ni-kanabo 鬼に金棒. Oni is a demon in Japanese culture and kanabo 金棒 is a metal pole that the demon carries around. It comes from a Japanese saying. Demons are very strong and scary and the metal pole (beating stick), in the hands of a fierce demon is very strong combination indeed. To be in the ‘oni-ni-kanabo’ position is to be stronger than strong, is to have an unbeatable advantage, a double advantage, unbeatable combination. That is the background on where the name and shape comes from. So, how about the taste?

Oni-ni-Kanabo 'Demon Roll' - Cut and Served

This novel confection is a long ‘pole’ of azuki bean paste (anko) that has been wrapped in a sheet of kokuto 黒糖 ‘black sugar’ mushi-pan ‘steamed bread’. It not only makes a convincing pole, it is really tasty! Sentaro has been mentioned a number of times on KyotoFoodie, way back in March of 2008, we introduced Sentaro’s rice flour kasutera (castella) which is otherworldly in texture and and subtlety of flavor. So, you can be sure that Sentaro has just the right touch for ‘bready’ wagashi.

I am usually not a fan of anko because it is too sweet or there is too much in wagashi confections, but the anko that makes the core of this demon roll is modest in quantity and sweetness. The kokuto mushi-pan makes it over-the-top for me. From the taste it would certainly seem that they didn’t skimp on kokuto, it has a huge and full taste of this wonderfully earthy and natural sugar and the texture of the mushi-pan made me think that it must have some kind of fairy dust sprinkled into it. As I ate it, the texture conjured up images of sylphs in fairyland, floating about, eating this impossibly light and fluffy steamed bread that is also moist and dense with flavor. Wow. That’s a Kyoto shinise for you! (A good one, that is, there are plenty of crappy ones.)

Packaging and Environment
I have complained about excessive packaging that is often synonymous with wagashi but this demon roll uses a modest (comparatively speaking, this is Japan) amount of resources in the packaging. It is just one layer of plastic wrap for hygiene and one piece of paper for the label. The paper the label printed on is white, I suppose they could have used unbleached paper.

Reference and Links
Discussion of the meaning and various translation of Oni-ni-kanabo on Proz.com

Map to Sentaro

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Otokomae Tofu Mushi Pan 男前豆腐店蒸しパン is really good! If you are in Japan and into mushi pan and/or Japanese convenience store junk food, this is worth looking for.

Otokomae Tofu Mushi Pan Steamed Bread - Package

Otokomae Tofu Mushi Pan Steamed Bread

Otokomae Tofu Mushi Pan Steamed Bread - detail

How Did Otokomae Tofu Mushi Pan Taste?
While the Otokomae Tofu cream bread was good it didn’t really wow me, this one has some wow factor to it! Some tofu is a bit crumbly and mochi pan is sticky and gooey. I was amazed that this mochi pan was both soft and moist and a bit crumbly!

It has a slight fruity fragrance that I imagine is supposed to simulate the fresh fruitiness of Otokomae Tofu, yet I suspect that it is neither natural or the fragrance of soybeans. Nice detail though.

The texture is more silky than ‘bready’, that keeps it on the tofu concept. While chewing it becomes creamy, just like tofu.

The taste is also similar to the texture, while it feels more ‘bready’ than tofu, the taste is very much of tofu. If you took a bite of this mushi pan, not knowing what it is, you would likely think ‘tofu’!

Tastes great and seems that it must have been very difficult to get the ‘tofu effect’ in steamed bread. I imagine the Pasco product development laboratory staff gave themselves a collective pat on the back when they pull this one off.

Otokomae Tofu Mushi Pan Steamed Bread - detail

Availability
According to Otokomaedofu’s blog this product will be available until February 28, 2010 in supermarkets and convenience stores in the Kanto, Chubu and Kansai regions (roughly the area between Tokyo and Osaka). Their tofu can be found in the tofu sections of most supermarkets.

From the Company Profile Page on Website - 'DonDondoko' is the Boss

Mothers Don’t Let Your Babies Grow-up to Work at Otokomae Tofu!
Though they make crazy great tofu, this is one odd company. In Japan, this is a company from the very wrong side of the tracks and one that is not really even plausible in old Kyoto. Despite the wacky corporate identity and website, this is a company to be reckoned with. Not just because it makes amazing tofu, but because just three years after the company opened for business the boss (shown above) was giving demonstrations abroad and actually shipping tofu to the US! (See this 2007 Japan Times article for details.)

According to commenter Akiko, the company profile above is fiction.

Links
Otokomae Tofuten Corporate Website (Japanese only)
Otokomae Tofuten on Facebook (in English)
Pasco Shikishima Baking Company (Japanese)

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I love nikuman, both the Japanese and Chinese variety. I find the baozi in China has a wonderful variety of hearty and tasty, usually handmade fillings and the nikuman in Japan often have great steamed bread but are a little mass produced in taste and feel. Japanese nikuman lacks the hearty soul of baozi in China as it is almost never handmade or fresh.

Kyoto-style baozi is not something that I had contemplated. It turns out there is a Kyoto kaiseki restaurant in Gion called Hattori Ebisu Rakuan (服部ゑびす楽庵) that developed a Kyoto-style manju that is sold in a few places in Kyoto, one being the foodie’s paradise of Nishiki Market. Hattori Ebisu Rakuan doesn’t actually have a shop in Nishiki but the tsukudani store Ajidontsuki has a steamer full of their nikuman. Give this one a try if you are visiting Nishiki Market, especially in during the winter months. In one recent year this was the number one selling item in all of Nishiki Market!

Kyoto-style Beef Manju Steamed Bun

In addition to being tasty, these nikuman are beautiful. They have a delightful ‘yakiin’ hot iron brand that says kokyo hoka, kokyo means old capital and hoka means hot, and these manju are hot hot hot!

Inside the thick streamed but is a mixture of beef tsukudani (wagyu beef simmered in sweet soy sauce), kimpira gobo (burdock root simmered in sweet soy sauce) and shibazuke tsukemono (Kyoto-style eggplant and cucumber pickled with red shiso)! The addition of tsukemono is really novel.

Kyoto-style Beef Manju Steamed Bun

Kyoto-style Beef Manju Steamed Bun - detail

How did it taste?
This nikuman is served straight out of the steamer and it is REALLY hot. I couldn’t eat mine right away and had to sit down on a chair in the shop while it cooled down.

I took a first nibble but it was still too hot for me to bite through the steamed bread and get to the tsukudani filling. The steamed bread is quite thick and being bread doesn’t have a huge taste. At first I was a little disappointed  feeling like it was going to be bland. Then after another nibble or two I finally got to the tsukudani filling, it was amazing! The combination of wagyu beef, burdock root — and tsukemono was a real surprise and quite overwhelmed me with flavor.

The texture was weird and satisfying; gooey rich beef, fibrous burdock root and crunchy, but hot tsukemono pickles. Tsukemono is always served as is, not cooked.

This little snack is a wonderously weird combination of several orthodox Japanese dishes and condiments — and pickles — wrapped up in a bit of classic Chinese cuisine. And, somehow it manages to still feel pretty ‘Kyoto’ to me. The shibazuke is one of Kyoto’s most well known tsukemono pickles and comes from Ohara, a small village in the mountains just north of the city. Ohara is very famous for its red shiso which is used to naturally color and flavor various pickles.

One thing, Miwa said that she has had this many times and sometime it is not so good. It is basically fast food. Though this nikuman was developed by a famous restaurant in Gion, I doubt that it is actually made by Hattori Ebisu Rakuan, on site. Production is probably subcontracted out. But it is still very good, pretty authentically Kyoto — and unique!

Ajidontsuki Shop Storefront, Nikuman Steamer on Left

Ajidontsuki Product Lineup, Mostly Tsukudani

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Mochi Mochi ‘Mushi Pan’ Steamed Bread もちもち蒸しパン

I first became acquainted with steamed bread in Western China. In China the steamed bread that I have had was usually filled with minced meat, spices and vegetables. In Japan, steamed bread, called mushi pan, is something that I have heard a lot of Japanese friends profess their love for, but I was never really into it. I am a REAL bread aficionado. I am really into all the Kyoto and Japanese cuisine you see on KyotoFoodie, but there is just nothing better to me than good bread and good butter. And where I come from, bread isn’t steamed.

Being steamed does create a very interestingly textured bread. It is quite heavy and wet. But mushi pan is usually sweetened with beans. I am not into that.

Then I met Mochi Mochi Mushi Pan, and I am a steamed bread fan!

Mochi Mochi Mushi Pan – Junk Food Package

How Does Mochi Mochi Mushi Pan Taste?
’Mochi mochi’ refers to the Japanese mochi rice cake made from sticky glutinous rice. Mochi mochi is a playful, onomatopoeic adjective that illustrates the heft and stickiness of this bread. This product is intended to be the meeting of steamed bread and mochi, and this sort of texture appeals very much to Japanese.

The taste is not very ‘bready’, it reminds me a bit of pancakes,  though too soft to be just a thick square pancake on the convenience store shelf. It really is something unique.

The bread is said to be milk caramel flavored. I picked up the caramel well, not too sweet though. But I didn’t get any milk flavor.

The top of the bread is pleasantly golden brown so it is not only steamed. At the end it must be exposed to direct heat from a flame or broiler. While taking a bite the aroma of grilled pancake and caramel is obvious, but not overdone.

The texture, the look and feel, the aroma, the flavor, everything is so perfectly done that this could only have been created in a laboratory. Alas, it is certainly junk food. But what junk food!

Mochi Mochi Mushi Pan is for sale in many of the convenience stores (Lawson and 99 Shop) and supermarkets in my neighborhood. It costs between 100 and 120 yen, depending on the store.

Mochi Mochi Mushi Pan – Served

Mochi Mochi Mushi Pan

Mochi Mochi Mushi Pan – detail