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Welp, I’ve been dreading this one for a while now, but I feel kind of obligated since Chris Kohler was kind (?) enough to donate the subject to the cause. And Cat started some hardcore diet of sadness and deprivation today, so it seemed as good a time for me to suffer as any. Love and solidarity through shared palate punishment, and all that. And thus I bring you: Kit-Kat Densetsu Banana Bar Edition.

Pray for me.

Photo by Jeremy

The notion of a Kit-Kat Banana Bar makes my stomach flip-flop a bit for not one but two, two, two exciting reasons!

First: it’s a Kit-Kat bar, not the usual mini-Kats I’ve been writing about, which means that it’s basically a single Kit-Kat stick xeroxed to brobdingnagian size, with all its component bits basically maintaining the same ratios and proportions as its smaller counterpart. Look at the thickness of that, uh, chocolate? If you can really call a waxy, yellow, banana-flavored substance “chocolate.” (Legally, I don’t think you’re allowed.) The scaled-up size means that if there’s a part of the bar I don’t like, it’s not a delicate hint like on a normal Kit-Kat. No, it’ll be a monstrous, never-ending beating of my taste buds.

Secondly: banana. I like bananas as much as the next dude, provided the next dude isn’t a monkey, but banana candy does not have a good track record in the history of our humble species. Banana-flavored sweets tend to be cloyingly perfumed and generally just too danged strong, savagely inflicting a chemical fruit taste upon your gentle taste buds without even offering a decent amount of potassium to justify the assault.

Needless to say, I approached this venture with some trepidation.

Funnily enough, though, that terror wasn’t fully justified. I can’t say I’ll be going out any time soon to stock up on Banana Kit-Kat bars, but at the same time I don’t feel a need to scald my tongue until it forgets the heart-rending sensation of what it’s like to taste, either. I have had considerably worse in the course of this endeavor, that’s for sure.

This bar has two redeeming traits. First, while the yellow “chocolate” is very definitely banana-flavored, it’s not stridently so. Uh, assuming flavor could be said to be strident. It’s nowhere near as delicious, rounded, or mellow as a real banana, but so far as grotesque polychemical mockeries of fruit go, it’s pretty alright. And secondly, the makers of this particular confection had the good grace not to make the wafer-and-creme filling part taste like banana, too. The actual flavor of it was sort of lost amidst the banana-ness of the coating, but at least it wasn’t suffused with perfumed faux-fruit essence. The straightforward neutrality of the wafer is a sort of… of… flavor oasis for your tongue. The eye of the fake-banana storm. A seventh-inning stretch for your tongue amidst an imaginary plantain home run rally.

I guess what I’m saying is that the Kit-Kat Banana Bar is surprisingly inoffensive — maybe well-balanced, even. So I guess we can take Japan off the trade embargo list again. You guys got lucky this time.

A three-day holiday weekend with lots of sunshine and mild weather? That can only mean one thing: It is Memorial Day, and there is time for crepes. And, obviously, terrible puns about crepes. But don’t blame me; I didn’t start it. No, the culpability for that rests squarely on the shoulders of the proprietors of our neighborhoods creperie, the Crepe Vine.

I’m not sure if this style of crepe is mainly a Bay Area/Northern California thing or if it’s something that became suddenly popular as soon as I moved here, but I’d never seen them before I moved out to San Francisco where they are a ubiquitous weekend brunch food. The formula is always the same: A savory crepe served with home-fried potatoes and a small salad. It’s not something I indulge in often, but when I do I always enjoy it.

(You’ll have to forgive the sub-par photography, as I forgot to bring along the real camera and was left to take iPhone snaps in the glare of the early afternoon sun.)

Above is Cat’s choice of crepe, called the San Francisco. You might wonder what combination of ingredients the owners of the Crepe Vine have deemed worthy of naming after their home town, but the answer I fear is mildly underwhelming. It’s just salmon, greens, onions, dijon, and something to do with capers. Me, I tend to think of salmon as more of a Pacific Northwest thing, whereas the essence of San Francisco would be some sort of Asian fusion. But clearly they’re the ones raking in the American Funbuxx™ with their popular crepe restaurant, whereas I’m some dude who barely ever remembers to update his amateurish food blog, so what do I know?

My own selection, which is much less disgusting in person than the photo would suggest, was the Tuscan. That angry green blob on top is a smear of pesto, and I swear it looks far less toxic in person. Unlike the San Francisco, the Tuscan actually seems somewhat representative of its namesake location, consisting as it does of chicken, feta cheese, pesto and almonds, and big chunks of tomato. Although I don’t doubt someone from Tuscany might sneer at this offering; it is, at the very least, representative of the stereotype of that region.

I suppose it doesn’t really matter what you put in a crepe, because by the simple virtue of being in a crepe it will be delicious. Crepe Vine doesn’t make the absolute best crepes in the world, but they’re definitely tasty. Having those wonderfully carcinogenic home fries on the side doesn’t hurt, either. Those things are delicious in that special way that only something fried to the point of carbon in a pool of heart-stopping fat can be.

It probably goes without saying that Crepe Vine and other similar creperies offer dessert crepes as well, usually made with things like lemon sauce and Nutella, but my wallet and waist line can only afford so much indulgence in a single day. That will be a treat for a different day.

Wasabi and cheesecake. Gross combo, huh? It’s actually strawberry cheesecake. That’s even worse!

I decided to bootstrap Kit-Kat Densetsu tonight with a two-fer. To clarify, though, I did not eat these two bars consecutively, because the flavors don’t really seem compatible, you know? But they do make an interesting contrast, given that they’re ultimately just differently flavored variants on the same kind of mass-manufactured candy.

Kit-Kat wasabi flavor. Photo by Jeremy

The first of these, Kit-Kat Wasabi flavor, is one of those definitive “only in Japan” flavors that make the nation’s candy output so unique. Here, we have two or three variants of Kit-Kat which revolve around the chocolate they’re made with. Over in Japan, they have variants that include citrus fruits, maple, soy sauce, and… horseradish.

You can tell something weird is up by the slightly greenish tint to the candy. This is a white chocolate bar, but it’s dyed the same color as a hospital wall. I suppose this is intended to approximate the color of wasabi paste without being too similar to the classic (-ish) green tea variant of Kit-Kat. But as Cat said when I went to photograph it: “Green food just looks weird.” You know, if it’s not vegetation.

So, it’s an aesthetic bomb, but how does it taste? Weirdly enough, not too bad. The green outer coating is simply normal-tasting white chocolate, and the wafers are your standard Kit-Kat wafer. The paste, however, actually does taste like wasabi. It’s a very mild, slightly sweet wasabi without any real sense of “oh god my sinuses” — I felt a twinge in my nasal passages, but I think that was simply a Pavlovian reaction to the taste.

On the whole, it’s not a flavor I would actively seek out, but it’s decent enough that it’s not coasting entirely on novelty… at least, in my opinion, anyway. Cat’s opinion is that it’s completely terrible, but she can’t stand either white chocolate or mixing sweet and savory flavors, so wasabi Kit-Kat is a double K.O. for her.

Photo by Jeremy

At the other end of the Kit-Kat spectrum is the Strawberry Cheesecake variant. Well, maybe not the other end of the spectrum, exactly… but the other end of the white chocolate Kit-Kat spectrum, anyway. Cat actually didn’t hate this one! That’s no small feat.

The secret? Despite looking like a standard white chocolate bar, it has a much better flavor. White chocolate is normally excessively sweet and lacks much depth of flavor, but the cheesecake aspect of the bar is incorporated into the outer layer. So while it tastes a bit like white chocolate, there’s a slightly smooth richness normally that this most unloved of all chocolates normally lacks.

And the creme filling, of course, is strawberry flavored. Well, I say “of course,” but I guess it’s not obvious since they didn’t go crazy with the artificial colors and make the creme pink. But yeah, fake strawberry flavor. Fortunately, the flavor isn’t especially strong, making it subtle enough to taste fairly natural rather than perfumey.

Still, it’s a white chocolate Kit-Kat, which means it is genetically inferior to its darker peers. Not to be racist or anything!

I don’t know why this makes me so happy, but it does. It totally does.

Photo by Jeremy

For the past, I dunno… nine months or so? For however long, since sometime last summer, every time I’ve gone to Andronico’s (the local, overpriced, yuppie, snooty-food grocery store which much to my wallet’s detriment is the only real supermarket within walking distance of my apartment), I’ve walked through the bakery area and seen these frog cookies. They come in a box of eight and cost something like $9, because Andronico’s is an overpriced, yuppie, snooty-food grocery store. And every time I see them, I want badly to buy a box. But they’re nine bucks, and also they’re not exactly diet food, so I really can’t afford them on two different levels.

Yesterday  I finally took the plunge, ostensibly because it was Mother’s Day and I wanted to do something nice for Cat’s cousin Nancy for her first Mother’s Day and she likes random cute things… but mostly because I really wanted the excuse to try the frog cookies. Frog cookies! Look how happy this guy is to know he’s about to be consumed:

Photo by Jeremy

I was not disappointed. They turned out to very tasty, kinda shortbread-y with frosting that wasn’t too sweet, and a partial semi-sweet chocolate coating. Really quite good. Worth the cost in money and calories? Eh, probably not. But look! Frog cookies!

I have no regrets.

Literally uphill, in fact, as I took a lengthy walk this morning to see if I could earn redemption from the mortal sin that is Beard Papa. I’ve lived in my current apartment for three years but until now have never really explored the neighborhood behind us. Today, I learned that behind my house is a very, very hilly area with lots of twisting roads that lead absolutely nowhere, and also a great many staircases inset into the sides of the hills.

And when I got home, here’s what was waiting for me:

Photo by Jeremy

Sweet rolls in the making. Hey, no problem, I thought; I don’t really like sweet rolls. These’ll be no problem to resist.

Then Cat took them out of the oven and I remembered the dark reality of her baking: She has a strange ability to bake dishes I normally hate in a way that I somehow love. And sadly (or… not sadly, really) these are no different. Soft, doughy, slightly sweet but not cloyingly so… basically the perfect sweet roll.

Photo by Cat

Golden brown, too. I don’t know how she does this, making it so hard to stay away from foods I feel like I should really not want, but it’s kind of infuriating! But my mouth is too happy for me to be able to complain. I think… it’s time I surrender.

I’ve been back on the exercise wagon for a few weeks, and it’s really made me appreciate how much better I feel when I’m active. It’s not even really about weight, honestly; I just like how energized I feel. Also, when I come home from work and hop on the elliptical for 45 minutes, I sleep really well that night. Like, really well. As in, I put my head on the pillow and I’m comatose within seconds.

(It doesn’t hurt that my standard workout is exactly the length of an episode of Lost — a handy coincidence now that Netflix streaming to consoles is a beautiful reality.)

So, now that I’m back in action, I don’t feel quite so guilty about the bumps along the road. The scrumptious, delicious bumps.

Meet today’s bump: Beard Papa. I have no idea why this pastry is called a Beard Papa — well, no, that’s not true. I know exactly why it’s called a Beard Papa. The Beard Papa chain is Japanese, and therefore its name is made of random English words slammed violently together like atoms in a cyclotron.

Beard Papas are far more appetizing than their name would suggest, which is to say that they are not hairy old men. They are cream puffs, and they are incredibly good cream puffs at that. The litmus test here is the fact that I will eat them; I’ve always hated cream puffs, but these are different. The pastry is super light, crisp on the outside and extremely airy inside. The cream itself is, you know, actually cream, not some vile concoction of corn syrup and dairy solids. The take-out packaging recommends you consume your purchase within the same day, because honest-to-god fresh dairy products and baked-daily pastries don’t keep.

The Beard Papa experience is elegant in its simplicity; it is the In ‘N’ Out Burger of desserts. On any given day, you are allowed your choice of three different flavors of cream: Vanilla, chocolate, or the flavor of the week. Once you make that selection, you may then choose whether you want a plain cream puff or an eclair. And that… is the extent of your choices. OK, Beard Papa also sells a small variety of croissants and cheesecakes, but I don’t really know why you would go to Beard Papa and order something that is not a cream puff. Would you go to a fine Italian restaurant and order macaroni and cheese? No, you would not, because you are not a heathen. Likewise, you would not go to a Beard Papa and order cheesecake. Some thing are simply Not Done, at least not by the properly civilized.

Pictured above is this week’s flavor, coffee, served eclair style. (The shop’s signage said the current flavor was pumpkin, so the reality disappointed me… but only slightly, because there is no such thing as a bad Beard Papa.) Based on my pre-Beard Papa experiences, I always thought eclairs were disgusting, soggy, creme-filled donuts topped with cheap, sugary chocolate frosting, but Beard Papa has taught me otherwise. Eclairs are, in reality, delicious fresh cream puffs dipped in top-quality dark chocolate. Eclairs are, in reality, wonderful. The chocolate shell is pleasantly thin, too, so it doesn’t add much heft to the basic puff shell. One of the finest attributes of a Beard Papa is that its flavor and texture are absolutely decadent, yet it’s light and modestly sized so it doesn’t sit in your belly like a rock. This remains true even as an eclair.

I only know of three Beard Papa shops in the world; one is in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. The other two are, inexplicably, a block apart in downtown San Francisco. They are both less than a ten-minute walk from my office, which means the fact that I do not buy one daily and simply roll to work may surprise you! But delicious things like this — even if weight-watching weren’t an issue — shouldn’t be eaten too frequently. A Beard Papa is not the kind of thing you want to take for granted. It is the sort of thing you eat only occasionally, perhaps to celebrate a great success in life, or maybe because someone you love has come downtown to join you for a rare lunch date. You share Beard Papas; you savor them; you appreciate them.

And then, the next day, you jog up a mountain to burn off the extra calories. Yeah, I have my Saturday morning cut out for me.

P.S., did you know that if you click on a photo twice, you’ll see a much larger version of that image? In this case, I feel doing so is a necessity in order to properly appreciate the delicate interior of a Beard Papa.