Sunday, May 11, 2008

"Eat the local specialties" is our travel watchword -- no pastrami in Barcelona or Wiener schnitzel in Rome. But in Tokyo, this approach does not always satisfy the need for something sweet. Let's be honest, adzuki bean dumplings don't always do the trick.

Happily, there are alternatives: French pastries. A handful of star Parisian chefs operate confectionary shops, cafes and stands in the basement food areas of big department stores. Even better, the treats cost less than their European counterparts.

In Tokyo, fancy pastries made by the best bakers run $6 to $8 each; in Paris, you might spend $10 for the same items. Sitting down for coffee and a snack in a pastry-shop cafe will cost you $12 to $17, including tax. (Remember, there's no tipping in Japan.)

On our last trip, my wife and I stumbled into a pastry shop attached to Joel Robuchon's Atelier restaurant in the Roppongi Hills development (Mori Tower). Though his other eateries around the world lack bakeries, at this Tokyo outpost, he has put an innovative twist on bread and pastry classics. The grapefruit tart, for example, featured a dark-brown, ultra-crispy puff pastry topped with custard and juicy fruit, and a flat sugared brioche dotted with vanilla pastry cream was irresistible.

We made the mistake of buying sweets on White Day, a "holiday" created by the confectionary industry in 1978. On Valentine's Day in Japan, women buy presents for men. A month later, the practice is reversed, thereby causing a five-minute point-and-pay transaction at Pierre Hermé (Laporte Aoyama building, 1F-2F-5-51-8 Jingumae, Shibuya-Ku; also in the Hotel New Otani and the Shinjuku branch of the Isetan department store) to stretch to a nearly half-hour wait in multiple lines.

But Hermé was worth the wait. The sweets are technically impeccable, built on flavor and texture combinations he calls "fetishes." The arrangements appear in a variety of forms: The rose, litchi and raspberry flavors of the Ispahan fetish, for example, reappear in a cheesecake, a macaroon-based pastry, a napoleon, a tart, a parfait served in a glass and an ice-cream bar goofily named Miss Gla'gla.

We visited Hermé's main Tokyo location, which is larger than his Paris shops and includes a cafe/lounge that serves delicious hot chocolate and surprisingly flavorless coffee. We checked in on our favorites: the macaroon Ispahan, the chocolate-upon-chocolate Carrement Chocolat and the 2000 Feuilles, an ultra-crunchy, caramelized napoleon developed for the millennium. We also tried for the first time the Hermé Carre Envie, a trio of cubes layered with violet-flavored cream and soft blackcurrant gelatin. Maybe it was the jet lag, but a tear came to my eye when I tasted this creation.

Instead of those curry doughnuts sold at neighborhood bakeries, we opted for the terrific pastries at Jean-Paul Hévin's cafe at the Shinjuku branch of Isetan (14-1 Shinjuku 3-chome; also in the Omotesando Hills mall and the new Tokyo Midtown development). Working mainly in chocolate, Hévin cannily varies the intensity of his flavors by juxtaposing dark and milk chocolates, and he makes interesting use of textures such as meringue. Also at the department store, we sampled a couple of Japanese-influenced desserts from Sadaharu Aoki's stand: a yuzu eclair (nice citrus flavor but too sweet) and a Bamboo, in which the bitterness of green tea was tempered with layers of chocolate cake and chocolate cream.

In the main Shibuya branch of Tokyu (2-24-1, Dogenzaka), another massive department store, we took a break at Dalloyau, always a reliable choice in Paris. A favorite was the Desir, a hazelnut cake topped with Bavarian cream and caramel.

Not far from Hermé's main store, Peltier (6-2-9 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku) displays pastries with gorgeous shiny glazes, nubby meringue surfaces and pretty shapes. Unfortunately, the flavors didn't always live up to the looks.

Tokyo isn't all fancy French pastries -- and Japanese bean pastes -- by the way. Krispy Kreme has arrived. At the Shinjuku store, we saw line-wranglers with walkie-talkies managing the crowds. However, no jelly-filled American doughnut was going to tempt us, not when we were carrying a little shopping bag marked with the discreet logo of Pierre Hermé.

-- Edward Schneider

For more information on travel to Tokyo: Japan National Tourist Office, 212-757-5640, http://www.japantravelinfo.com.