🥨A German Pretzel in Tokyo🥨 #yum #apretzelspeaksmorethan1000words #favesnack #Kichijojiflashbacks #TBT

It’s no secret that duck and I love pretzels. Just thinking about them is relaxing for us. That’s why they made it into our story about Cat, our hat-selling dog, that our friend A. helped us come up with in our early days in Tokyo. So, when we learned about Bäckerei Kaffee Linde in Kichijoji, we were super excited to try their German pretzels. They even had a designated pretzel day with an attractive discount on our baked bringers of happiness. Naturally, this became one of the duck and my favorite shops in Tokyo. One pretzel day, we decided to get an extra pretzel for our lovely housemate Mm. She wasn’t there when we got home, so we left it on the dining table together with a short note in our best Japanese (concerning the Japanese language, our “best” is the average person’s “terrible”). We knew that, when it comes to pretzels, there’s no need for many words or small talk – Cat conversed with the pretzel shop owner using nothing but images! As expected, Mm understood the note. And the duck and I like to think that that day, the universal pretzel fan club gained a new member. 5/5 pretzels for a baked love most pure! ♥🥨🧡🥨♥

Strictly speaking, the picture doesn’t even show a snack the duck and I enjoyed at home (though there was a pretzel in our bedroom when I snapped this quick shot of Mm’s pretzel-to-be). This might be a new low in our series about foods we’ve eaten outside our home.
Well, that’s nothing a delicious pretzel won’t fix! 😀

♪Movie night snacks #Goldenweektreats #nibbleswithfriends #Tokyomemories #worththepain #TBT

This is a photo the duck and I like to look at whenever we need a reminder that terrible days have the potential to end sweetly:

Two years ago, I shared a photo from a spontaneous Shinjuku pancake afternoon with our sugar-appreciation pals. I also mentioned that on the way home, my ankle hurt so badly that I was moving at a painful pace of 600 mph, meters per hour, that is. Fortunately, the duck (who had waddled ahead and was waiting for me at the front door while listening to a whole episode of The Truth) and I had a movie night with our housemates to look forward to on my slow waddle home from the station. Once we saw what Mm had bought for the occasion – fancy cakes and mixed nuts, a true delicacy in expensive Tokyo – the duck and I were a bit ashamed for only contributing popcorn. Despite that shame and my aching ankle (that was responsible for more than one mistimed tear as we watched the action movie we had decided on), I have fond memories of this movie night nearly four years ago ♪
5/5 popcorn kernels for our kind, exceptional housemates and a positively memorable evening ♪
(0/5 sneaky tears for the post-Akita ankle pain)

The duck and I miss our time in Tokyo. I would even put up with another week of not being able to walk and the constant risk of drowning in my own tears of pain if that meant a few cozy days at our Tokyo place filled with movies, housemate chats, and all those delicious Japanese treats ♥

♡Crepe cake #foodwithfriends #TokyoDomeCity #byebyelatedinners #luxuriousfruit #isthis1ofour5aday #TBT

It’s that time of year again when the duck and I like to reminisce about all the lovely cakes we’ve eaten. Last year we shared a photo of the first set of beautiful cake slices we ordered with our fabulous friend C over pizza and water at Pizzeria Mar de Napoli at Tokyo Dome City – four years ago! Those chocolate cakes will forever be the first thing that comes to mind when the duck and I think about our Tokyo pizza dinners. This (what I believe is a) mille crepe fruit cake, however, was pretty nice, too. Especially because fruit was a rare treat for a chronically poor duck and me in Tokyo. This might have been the last time we went to our favorite Tokyo pizza place before leaving Japan. We also had to share this cake with one additional person, which is never fun when precious fruit is involved… 3/5 ducks for a bittersweet memory ・✧  🍰  ✧・

Maybe the duck and I should eat out more. It’s getting predictable just how many photos from our glamorous life as poor Tokyo (suburb) dwellers the duck and I share on here these days. Maybe we shouldn’t eat out more and instead share photos of at-home snacks exclusively? Either way, there’s no shame. My cow shall remain honorable.

✳Vegan cookie box✳ #fancytokyosnacks #deliciousbakedgoods #carbsplease #inthemoodforveganfood #TBT

The duck and I rediscovered this picture on our phone the other day: About four years ago, when we were still quite new to Tokyo, our housemate brought a box of vegan cookies for us all to share. He got it at a Tokyo bakery called foodmood that specializes in beautiful and immensely delicious baked goods perfect for gifting or as omiyage. This mix of cookies, crackers, and granola tasted divine. And we felt extra fancy to be munching luxurious vegan cookies at home (I think this is the same box they are still occasionally selling these days – with peanut butter cookies, maple granola, chocolate-coconut cookies, nori-cashew crackers, ginger cookies, and black sesame sticks… and a serious price tag). If we ever make it back to Japan, the duck and I might actually invest in one of these fancy cookie boxes ourselves, and, ideally, share it with friends to literally pay it forward. 5/5 duck-shaped cookies for this amazing flavor experience and the opportunity to feel truly fancy. Thanks, old new housemate! ✳✧✳✧✳

When the duck and I first started putting these kinds of food posts on here, we did it as a bit of an inside joke because our friends knew that we weren’t the kind of people who would eat at fancy places and then post the aesthetically pleasing proof on Instagram. Well, as it turns out, we have started snapping photos in the few instances that we encountered photogenic food since. And we have come to mean it when we write that “we have started following @foodmoodshop on Instagram and are now obsessed with looking at all those pretty photos of cookies and cakes that they post.” I guess that’s like all those times I started using a word or phrase ironically, to later find it has snuck its way into non-ironic everyday conversation. Oh well…

· ✽ Mille-feuille pie ✽ · #sweetsurprise #lovelylayers #covertchocolate #scrumptiousstrawberries #TBT

This is embarrassing. Usually, the duck and I are too proud to even consider posting obviously shaky snapshots on here (shaky is for videos only), but we’re running out of photographic memories of tasty snacks we’ve eaten, so now we have to resort to fuzzy photos of fabulous outside foods we ate at home (apologies to your eyes – wait! I know! – let’s make this ‘art’ and call it a ‘nearsightedness-simulation’):

One Tokyo spring day, the duck and I came home to a lovely little dessert waiting for us: a Mille-feuille Pie with Strawberry & Chocolate from La Petite Mercerie in one of the Shinjuku Lumines. Our exceptional housemate Mm had bought it for a photographic project. But instead of eating her model herself afterward, she decided to give it to us. The duck and I were so thrilled and surprised that we took a single shaky shot of our lovely pie before devouring it. It was delicious! First of all, eating strawberries as a persistently poor person in Japan always feels like a treat which is why they were our favorite part, especially paired with the puff pastry pieces and the custard-/whipped cream topping. The layers of puff pastry, chocolate cakes, and -mousse tasted divine and made this one of the fanciest desserts the duck and I have ever had. This is why we decided to give this delectable memory a home on this blog, even though the photo doesn’t even remotely measure up to the taste. 4/5 ducks, only because of the mundane ambiance of our bedroom (but with leftover happiness about our lovely house mate).
∼ · ♡ · ∼

I wonder if the duck and I will ever eat out again. Only time (and our motivation) will tell…

Amanatsu Peel and Camomile Muffin☆ #refreshing #Kokubunjicoffeetour #fancysnacks #creativeatmosphere #TBT

Our friend N’s birthday is in April. So, every year around this time, the duck and I reminisce about the Kokubunji coffee tour – in our coffee snob period – that we went on a few days before we were to leave Tokyo. After having had one of the best iced coffees of our lives at Life Size Cribe, we sat down for an Amanatsu (a Japanese citrus fruit) peel and Camomile muffin served with tofu cream at Café Slow while N, keeping with the actual theme of our outing, had her second cup of lovely coffee. This muffin was super satisfying, and getting to see a bit of Kokubunji was just as great! 5/5 ducks for an amazing coffee-themed afternoon in an area we should have explored much sooner! ☆★☆★☆

We can’t wait to continue our Kokubunji exploration and coffee snobbery, hopefully in the not too distant future!

♥Chocolate Cakes♥ #somuchchocolate #TokyoDomeCity #lovelylatedinners #fabulousfoodterrifictalks #TBT

When we were living in Tokyo the duck and I loved to spend evenings with C, one of our favorite Tokyo people and the initiator of the sugar-appreciation-pals, having vivid conversations over some pizza and water at Pizzeria Mar de Napoli at Tokyo Dome City. We mainly had pizza because we wanted to consider ourselves as grown-ups who eat real food before ordering cake. But, really, the cake usually was the nutritive highlight of our late dinners. This photo is from the first time we ordered some. The duck and I got a dense chocolate cake while our friend went with a light chocolate cake with chocolate cream that she let us try. 5/5 Ducks for glorious cake and conversations ♥

The duck and I love looking back at our time in Tokyo. We had a lot of fun there and the opportunity to hang out with friends without worrying about getting anyone sick. We can’t wait to go back to eating overpriced restaurant food and meeting up with all the people we haven’t seen in way too long!

Spying on turtles at Kiyosumi Gardens

Last week I mentioned how, back when we were still living in Tokyo, the duck and I went to a garden before we admired a lovely Kawawa Chizuru 猫魚姫 (cat fish princess) exhibition and had a delicious sorbet brioche. Said garden was Kiyosumi Garden. After meeting our lovely tour guide friend at Kiyosumi-shirakawa station, it only took a few minutes and a minuscule entrance fee until we could enjoy a nice and refreshing (as refreshing as a humid summer day in Tokyo can be) stroll around the lake, marveling at the peaceful scenery – and the turtles! At one point one of the turtles even got out of the water, started following us around (maybe plotting to bite us, as our friend theorized) and then posed for some photos surrounded by other park visitors. Our fond respect for turtles definitely increased even more that day! Of course we also enjoyed seeing all the cool birds and fish.

If you ever visit (Eastern) Tokyo, the duck and I highly recommend checking out Kiyosumi Gardens. At around ¥150 the entrance fee is super affordable for getting the opportunity to admire all that wonderful flora and fauna – and maybe even have your own memorable turtle encounter.
If you have some free time after, we suggest strolling around the area surrounding this beautiful garden, maybe having some tasty coffee or an ice cream filled brioche and visiting a Buddhist temple, as we did that day before the duck and I went to Shinjuku (a mere 20-25 minute subway ride away) to meet up with some old and new friends, including our Kyoto, Edo-Tokyo, Akita and Kamakura (among other little adventures) travel pal.
That was one of our last mini adventures in Tokyo, and the duck and I are so happy that it turned out so memorable and, well, perfect.
Have you ever experienced such days – days that turned out better than you could have imagined when you woke up in the morning?

⁓Ice Cream Brioche⁓ #sorbetactually #refreshing #kiyosumishirakawawalks #learnaboutoneofourfavoriteartists #TBT

The duck and I don’t eat out much these days. Therefore, daydreaming about all the nice things we ate in the past has become one of our favorite pastimes. Recently, with the summer heat keeping us from sleeping through the night sometimes, we’ve started craving a big serving of sorbet – which is best enjoyed together with a friend, ideally after a day of exploring nice gardens, a pretty exhibition (we were lucky to see one featuring Kawawa Chizuru’s lovely Nyangyohime, cat fish princess, watercolors – and going by what we did last week, you can bet how thrilled we were!) and lovely old neighborhoods, as we did about two years ago when we took a rest at Brigela with our favorite Ginza guide! As the name suggests, this shop’s main attraction is ice cream hugged by a fluffy brioche. So, of course, that’s what we got! The duck and I went with two sorbet flavors: melon and pineapple (I think). We were a bit worried about whether the sorbet would work inside a milky, buttery brioche, but, I don’t know what we worried for! This was definitely the most refreshing and one of the most delicious snacks the duck and I have tasted in Japan! 5/5 cat fish princesses for the delicious sorbet brioche and the wonderful company ❤

Talking about cat fish princesses: Do an image search for 猫魚姫 on your favorite search engine, if you like, to see what all the hype is about! We got to chat with Kawawa Chizuru at her solo exhibition and she was truly lovely. The duck and I need to study some more Japanese so that, one day, we can casually check her website to see what’s new.

Memories of that one time we went to the Imperial Palace East Gardens in Tokyo

The duck and I still avoid going out as much as possible. This is why we love looking through our photos from past adventures. Pretty much exactly two years ago, for example, we went to the Imperial Palace East Gardens that are located on the former grounds of Edo Castle with our Disney Sea adventure pal Sb. We did not take a lot of usable photographs, unfortunately, which is probably why we never put them on here. But now we’re desperate for material (and for being able to safely go to parks again), so here ya go:

Some of these photos aren’t as good as we’d like them to be, but the duck and I still have a vivid memory of arriving too late in the day to be able to fully explore the gardens before they closed, of eating snacks on a bench near the entrance, of excitedly watching an ant fight at the base of a bamboo stalk, of being surprised by how loudly toads could croak, of trying to make our way around the lake while garden employees told everyone that it was time to leave and of strolling around Shinjuku and having conveyor belt sushi after. I guess this is more of a memory-refresher for us. For you, maybe, this can act as an invitation to explore this wonderful garden yourselves (for free!) when this whole crisis is over?
Stay safe and sane, everyone!
The duck and I.