One of my favorite donut shop in Japan, wait, in the “world” is Mister Donut in Japan. Their donuts are just freakin’ great!!! High quality, amazing selections and super delicious. No matter when, where, or what, they have never disappointed me. When I was visiting Japan, I saw Mister Donut in a shopping mall, and I got excited!
I was trying to be strong and walk right by as if I didn’t notice the glorious sign that spelled out my favorite donut shop name. But, a very colorful and interesting sign jumped at me and stopped me cold. It said something about veggie donuts. Say what??? I knew I had to check it out… And there they are, three kinds of donuts made with veggies and fruits!
It was my duty to check them out thoroughly, including a thorough taste test. Am I right? They had three kinds of them, and they are called Veggie Pop. We bought the package of three (200 yen) since we wanted to try them all. They had nice colors, and the package matched the veggie pops with its colors and ingredients.
They are kind of mini-donuts, much smaller than regular size. I guess that is the reason for their name being veggie “pops” instead being called veggie donuts. Which was just fine, since we just wanted a taste of them.
The first one up was reddish-orange one, made with Carrot, Strawberry and Tomato. I know! Super interesting! The color makes sense, since it has red and orange ingredients in it. The cream had bits of strawberries in it, and dough was light and airy. The taste? Well, it was mostly strawberry. It had a hint of carrot and tomato, but not so much. I thought the veggie flavor would be more prominent and therefore strong, but it wasn’t. I was a bit disappointed, but it was still pretty darn interesting donut.
Next up was Pumpkin, Apple and Carrot. It was golden color, similar to the inside of pumpkin. The cream had bits of apple in it, and again, it was more fruity than anything else. If you didn’t read the ingredients, you couldn’t really make out the other flavors which was really faint. The apple flavor was too overpowering compared to the others. I think the flavor in the cream tends to be stronger than the flavor in the dough, even in cakes and other baked goods.
The last one was made with Japanese Mustard Spinach, Pineapple, and Spinach. It had nice green color to it, and the cream was slightly green too. Just like the others, bits of fruits, which in this case was pineapple. This one had more veggie flavor than others, I think, but still sweet and very pineapple-y. I love spinach, so I was glad to be able to try a spinach donut.
Overall, veggie pops were more like fruit pops, with hint of veggie. Still, it was good quality and tasty. I really liked them all, and I am glad I got to try these cute little pops. I wish if I could taste more veggie, but they were really unique and delicious nonetheless.
We also bought few other items from Mister Donut. I wanted to buy one of everything, but that was not ok with my wallet and my health… So, I limited to just a few more… They had munchkins there, which I always love, so that was no brainer. They are called Donut Pop (250 yen) and has eight donut pops in the container.
The bottom of the container is paper cup, with plastic lid on top. The paper cup had such cute design on it, with lots of happy creatures loving the donut pops, of course.
These little pops were looking pretty and inviting. Since we were sharing these with a few people, we cut them all into halves. We got a couple of the same kinds, and four other different kinds. They were all really tasty and good quality as well. Cute little dessert pops to bring a smile on your face, just like those adorable characters drawn on the paper cup container.
We also got a regular size donut too. One of them caught my eye, which was their version of Cronut. It is called Mister Croissant Donut. We got their crème brûlée flavored one (150 yen). Why? Because I love crème brûlée!
It was made with croissant dough as you can imagine, with custard filling. It was topped off with layer of hard caramel. It was pretty darn tasty and hit the spot! I wish if it had a bit more filling, but it was really delicious. Since the caramel was already sweet, maybe it was good that it didn’t have lots of custard filling at the end… I guess they know exactly what they are doing after all!
The last item was something very uniquely Japan, Kinako & Azuki Whip Donut(120 yen). This donut had kinako sugar dusting all around. Kinako is a roasted soybean flour, and commonly used in traditional Japanese sweets, mixed with powder sugar.
It had whipped cream with sweet azuki beans in it. Usually, azuki beans are made into paste, but here, they left them in beans form, so that you can enjoy the texture. It was really nice, milky and velvety cream against firm but soft sweet beans. Kinako powder added that extra traditional flavor, bringing this European desserts to become Japanese dessert. The dough was dense but airy, chewy but fluffy. Flavor of azuki beans, cream and kinako went really together.
So, I could not resist the magic of Mister Donut… At least I only visited one of their hundreds of locations just once during this trip. I think I was really strong, but not strong enough to resist them altogether… But hey, I must have some yummy treats from them when I can, as they are not available here in NYC. I am sure I will go back to try some other interesting delicious creation on my next trip to Japan! You know the saying, “Life is Short, Eat Dessert!”
Mister Donut – 175 Wakashiba, Kashiwa, Chiba Japan