Tokyo Banana : The Fluffy Sponge Cake Famous as a Tokyo Souvenir
The other day I went to “Makuhari Messe (幕張メッセ)”, a convention center in the city of Chiba, by car to see a live concert of “Perfume”, a very popular Japanese techno-pop girl group, and that night, I stayed at my friend’s house in Tokyo.
The next day I hung out with him and went to Matsudo, Chiba Prefecture to eat a bowl of ramen by a very popular ramen shop “Tomita (とみ田)“. After that, I parted from him and headed for home. On the way home from Tokyo, on a highway I stopped by a rest stop in Saitama to buy Tokyo souvenirs for my family and hometown friends.
Actually, standard Tokyo souvenirs are available at many rest stops in Tokyo’s neighboring prefectures. Since I had decided what I wanted to buy, I looked for that Tokyo souvenir in the rest stop and was able to purchase it.
Tokyo Banana (東京ばな奈)
The Tokyo souvenir I bought is “Tokyo Banana (東京ばな奈)”. Tokyo Banana is a popular sponge cake filled with banana-flavored custard cream. It is known as a standard Tokyo souvenir in Japan.
Flavors
According to the official website of Tokyo Banana, currently 7 flavors of Tokyo Banana (Original, Banana yogurt, Honey banana, Almond milk, Maple banana, Banana pudding, Chocolate banana) are available.
As for the flavor I chose at the rest stop in Saitama, it is the original one. In other words, the Tokyo Banana I purchased consists of a yellow banana-like sponge cake with a banana-flavored custard cream filling.
Taste
The yellow sponge cake is really soft and fluffy, so accordingly, it is light in texture and weight. You can easily divide this sponge cake into two by hand. When it is divided into two pieces, you can see a custard cream filled in the cake.
The sponge cake itself is not so sweet, while the custard cream filling has a slight banana flavor and is pretty sweet. Thus, the Tokyo Banana cake has a good taste balance as a whole.
In Conclusion
Every time I take Tokyo Banana home or give it to friends of mine as a Tokyo souvenir, the sweet treat definitely pleases them, because it is really delicious and very familiar to them. This time too, my family and friends were very satisfied with the fluffy sponge cake.
