Tokyo tales: Love Sweets Antiques

Okay, I'm back to reliving some memories of my trip to Tokyo.  I was browsing through my iPhoto and felt the need to share.  I also know that I should offer up some more yarn-finding advice for others who might be optimistically typing in 'yarn + Tokyo' into Google like I did.  I'll try to do that as well, but here's a totally non-crafty, but totally cute, bit of Tokyo love.

I did a lot of extra walking when I was wandering on my own through the city.  I wanted to see everything I could, so I often passed up some possible metro connections to take the longer route to the closest train station.  The bonus of the train is that you stay above ground, plus map reading those lines is a little simpler than the underground.  And in cases where destinations were just a single train stop away, I often just skipped public transport entirely and took to my feet.

This resulted in my getting to see a lot of randomly cool things (and I'll be honest, a lot of randomly boring things as well).  It also made me feel even less guilty about indulging in whatever food I felt like trying.  And as soon as I spotted this cute little storefront on my way from Harajuku to Shibuya (at the junction of Aoyoma Dori and Omotesando), I knew I wanted to try whatever it was they might be selling.  From across the street, I couldn't be sure what they were, but they sure were colorful.

What they were were donuts...sort of.  Love Sweets Antiques (that's a Japanese-only site, FYI) fulfills every expectation of cuteness, with plastic donuts dangling from chandeliers and piled up next to a big white rabbit.

The non-plastic donuts you actually eat come in little octagonal boxes and are kept refrigerated.  All I had to go on in choosing my sweet was color, so I chose the pretty purple.  That turned out to be blueberry.  Rather than fried dough, these rings have a base of sponge cake, with a mousse on top that's set a little bit like a panna cotta (with bits of actual blueberry in mine).  They don't really fit any definition of donut I've come across before, but they are circular and delicious, so it doesn't really matter.

I wandered a little down the street and found a place to sit for a few minutes to eat my sweet with one of those tiny plastic flattened spoons similar to the ones you get in fancy gelato places.  Revived nutritionally and aesthetically, it was time to continue the journey down to Shibuya to find another Tokyu Hands location.  But hopefully more on that in another post...