Before Christmas, I went out with Miss Rock for our annual get-together. It’s actually been almost two years since we last met. This time, we kept it local and walked from Borough all the way to Tottenham Court Road via Strand, through part of Oxford Street, into Regents Street area, then Covent Garden, Waterloo and Elephant and Castle. I thought I was walking really slow, but Miss Rock said I was walking a little too fast. Really? That’s mega slow speed for me! LOL.

On our journey, we stopped by a Japanese confectionery store called Minamoto Kitchoan 源吉兆庵. It’s been opened for more than two years, and this is the first time I remembered to stop by.

We were looking at the prices for most of the products, and most are a tad expensive. Japanese imported things are expensive. It’s a shame, as I would have bought loads if they were at a reasonable price.

We took a while to decide what we wanted.

In the end I chose these. I like rice crackers and mochi, so I chose these.

If you know me, I like a good cheese flavoured rice cracker.

It has powdered cheese covering the whole of the cracker. It has a nice crunch to it, and it nicely softens into your mouth as you taste the last moments of the rice cracker as it disappears in your mouth. It makes you crave for more. There’s only 5 packets of 2 crackers, so save them to the last minute if you can!

I’ve not tasted tomato flavoured rice crackers before.

This actually tastes like red tomato pesto sauce with the herbs that they’ve added to give it an Italian-Japanese feel. It tastes like a pizza. ^_^ Yummy!!

This is a mamedaifuku – a large bean rice cake. Basically a large version of a bean-filled mochi.

I should have bit into it rather than try to pull it apart. Shame of me. Sweet red bean paste in the middle. I would say it’s not that special. It wasn’t too sweet, and I think I would just purchase normal small mochi next time.

I spent £13 in this store. Expensive right? Yes it is. (The Geek has expensive taste… I was born with it 😅).

Address: 448 Strand, London WC2R 0QU
Tel: 0203 490 4747

Website: https://www.kitchoan.co.uk/