Baikotei

On a walk through Aoto’s shopping street, 梅香亭’s display offers more than classic red bean dorayaki: alongside the familiar staple are versions with a more unusual twist. There is a neat, traditional dorayaki marked with a plum blossom, but the playful detail is that each shape comes with a different filling: sweet potato in the cat-shaped one, maple in the star. Some are stamped with fragrant-looking paw prints; the bear-shaped version has no filling, letting the flavour of the baked dough speak for itself. These whimsical treats have also made welcome souvenirs.

Other sweets are just as carefully shaped: delicate cat and panda monaka, crisp wafers filled with sweet bean paste, sit alongside nerikiri fashioned as peonies and plum blossoms. They are a pleasure to look at as well as to eat. The selection also includes handmade dumplings and kusa mochi, chewy rice cakes flavoured with mugwort, as well as kuri-iri kuriman, a chestnut bun with a whole chestnut inside, and mame daifuku made with Hokkaido-grown azuki beans. These traditional sweets have a gentle, unfussy sweetness. Sometimes, an item not on the display stand can be brought out from the back if you ask—a small, friendly exchange that gives this neighbourhood sweets shop its welcoming feel.

There is more than sweetness here: rice dishes and okowa, sticky rice, are also available from early in the morning. Well-seasoned gomoku-mame okowa, sekihan (red bean sticky rice) and inari sushi make convenient choices for a light bite or everyday takeaway. On some chilly-season weekends, steaming oden appears at the storefront. Daikon that has soaked up the broth and yields easily to chopsticks is one of the seasonal pleasures that makes a casual stop feel worthwhile.