A turtle with surprises

It's no secret that I love bread.  I bake it at home and I also support many local bakeries around here, as they are plentiful and delicious.  Back in the 80's it was really popular for pastry chefs to go to France to study baking.  The chefs would then return to Japan and open cake shops, bread shops, and pastry shops.  As time went on, they've added a lot of Japanese touches, specifically adding popular Japanese flavors such as matcha and adzuki beans. 

My family has always enjoyed cute shaped pastries, like the savory lion pastries and hermit crab chocolate cream pastry I've talked about before.  So, when we went to Boulangerie Ken and saw bread shaped turtles for sale, we had to get one!  I've been to this bakery before.  It is the one that sells the cream cheese filled bagels.

When you enter a bakery in Japan, you pick up a tray and tongs near the door.  You then wander through the store picking up whatever pastries you want with your tongs and put the goodie onto your tray.  At the counter, the staff put each item into a plastic bag for you (no boxes here). 

I enjoy hearty, dense bread, which is really hard to find here.  Japanese people tend to favor very lightweight white bread.  Finding wheat bread of any kind is pretty difficult.  When you do find wheat bread, it is still similar in texture to white bread.  This particular bakery is very different from most, where all of it's bread is very dense and hearty.  Just picking up the individual pastries and rolls at Boulangerie Ken, you can feel the difference in weight!

We didn't notice the turtles at first, as we were perusing the bagels and other carbs.  Suddenly, I spotted it and my tongs went right for it.  When I picked that sucker up, he was heavy!  I almost dropped him because I wasn't prepared for the weight of him.  Soon our tray was filled with carbs, and we headed home.

The next morning, it was time to eat the turtle.  We knew the one turtle was enough to share between the three of us for breakfast.  My son kindly took a leg, but I ripped him in half.  Inside, we were quite surprised to find whole cashews!  The label had said it contained cashews, but we still weren't expecting this surprise!  He also had some sort of processed cheese inside.  The bread flavor was good, but I wasn't a fan of the whole cashews or cheese.  They just took it to a level of weird that is hard to explain.  The nuts had softened quite a bit in the baking process and the cheese just wasn't my taste. 

When buying bread here, there are a lot of hits and misses.  I would say it is 90% yummy and 10% "what am I eating?"  It is always an adventure.  You never really know what you're going to bite into.