2021年05月13日
Do you like melon bread? It’s a mainstream and popular Japanese pastry-like bread often eaten as a 3 o'clock snack. Easily buyable at convenience stores, the ingredients and the making of the bread change from a place to another. And you, how do you like your melon bread ?
Melonpan is a sweet, pastry-like bread that originated in Japan. It is baked with cookie dough on top of the bread dough.
The most popular theory is that the shape and the pattern of the cookie dough resembles a melon, hence the name 'melonpan'.
When our reporter asked his friend about where his favourite melon bread bakery was, he immediately answered with “Mameya,” a little bakery located in Higashikawa-cho, a town next to Asahikawa.
Here, they sell a small but firm melon bread that fits in the palm of an adult woman (about 17 cm).
The cookie dough wraps up to the back of the bread. This is why the bun is crispy no matter where you bite. This crunchiness is the main characteristic of Mameya’s melon bread.
The inside of the bread dough is soft and chewy, making it twice as enjoyable. The sweetness and crunchiness of this melon bread will make you want to eat it again and again. Our reporter understood why his friend recommended this bakery.
Source: Harusuke
Name: Homemade yeast bread Mameya
Address: Kamikawa-gun Higashikawa-chō Higashimachi 2-chōme
Telephone: 080-6075-8088
Business hours: 9:00 - 17:00
Regular holidays: Sundays, Mondays, and holidays
Parking Lot: Yes
Adagio is an employment support facility for people with disabilities located at 9-chome, in Nakadori, in the heart of Asahikawa.
It's annexed to a cafe where you can buy takeout bread.
A large variety of breads is sold here, from pastry-like breads such as melon bread to plain and staple, hard breads.
Source: Harusuke
This time, our reporter bought a “Chocolate Melon Bread.” Some granulated sugar was sprinkled on the top of the chocolate cookie dough. The round and cute shape of the bread charmed our writer.
After getting home, our writer was surprised to discover that the inside of his melon bread was filled with chocolate cream. Our writer feared that the granulated sugar cookie dough, the bread dough and chocolate cream’s sweetness would be too much and get heavier and heavier as he eats his snack. But since the melon bread wasn’t that big he didn’t have any trouble to eat his pastry.
Source: Harusuke
Name: Adagio
Address: Asahikawa-shi 2-jōdori 9-chōme
Phone: 0166-73-6445
Business hours: 10: 00-16: 00
Regular holiday: Saturday / Sunday
No parking lot
Our reporter heard rumours about a certain melon bread that looks and tastes like melon and decided to take a look at the AEON MALL Asahikawa station square’s Délifrance bakery.
Indeed, it looks really like a melon!
Filled with whipped cream and melon, the taste of melon spreads in your mouth from the first bite.
The bread dough and the cookie dough are soft, the melon bread doesn’t have this crunchy texture that our reporter loves so much.
However it really tastes like melon and lives up to its name: melon bread! Usually there is no melon flavouring in the melon bread but this one have the colour, the shape and the taste of a melon. Nowadays and according to the seasons you can find various flavours of melon breads, such as strawberry, maple, chocolate chips, apple, etc…
Source: Harusuke
Store name Délifrance ~ Délifrance ~
Address: Asahikawa-shi Miyashitadōri 7-chōme 2-ban 5-gō, Aeon Mall
Phone 0166-29-2717
Business hours 8: 00-21: 00
Regular holiday AEON MALL Asahikawa station square
There is a parking lot
MEGA Don Quijote’s “Big Melon bread” made quite an impact on our reporter: it is much bigger that he could have imagined.
Source Harusuke
“Just how many people do you need to eat all of this?!”.
This is what our reporter first thought, but as he was cutting his bread, our reporter noticed that the inside of the bun was soft and airy. Lightheartedly, our reporter thought that, maybe, he might be able to eat the whole thing.
He was wrong, so wrong.
The inside of the bread was sure light and soft. But let’s not forget that the pastry is covered with a crunchy, thick cookie dough layer.
The snack is also pretty cheap at only 324 yen.
It’s the perfect snack for growing children !
Pen for scale!
Source: Harusuke
Name MEGA Don Quijote
Address: Asahikawa-shi, Shunkō, 1-jō 8-chōme 1-ban 65-gō
Phone 0570-036-811
Business hours 8: 00-25: 00
No regular holiday
There is a parking lot
This time we ate various types and flavours of melon breads!
Each store, convenience store and bakery have their own particularities.
This might be the chance to get out with your children and treat them a snack.
Translator notes:
From all the things I have brought back as a gift from Japan with me, my friends and family's most loved gift is melon bread. This bread is well-appreciated by my parents because it’s good, it's a (kind of) traditional Japanese food yet this is not too far from what they are used to eat.
Another friend who visited Japan few years ago said that he used to eat melon bread every single morning.
Translated from Harusuke’s article.
この記事のキュレーター
Hello there!
I am in charge of translating in english some of asatan's articles.
I'm from France and I have been living in Hokkaido for 6 years.
Things I like : drawing, pokemon, online games,
Things I don't like : melon, lags, waking up in the morning
Source: Harusuke