food

Nagoya sweet 'pyorin' too cute to eat

4 Comments
By Karen Masuda

“Pyorin,” the cutest sweet in Nagoya, is rising in the ranks of local Nagoya specialties. Take the sound a baby chick makes, “piiiii piiiii piiiii,” and the word pudding, or purin in Japanese, put them together with a darling baby chick face in the shape of a pudding-like dessert, and you have pyorin.

Last September, Pyorin won an award for its excellency among the specialties of Nagoya at Aichi Prefecture’s food contest of local specialties. Since then this treat has been selling like hot cakes while the producers speed up production to meet demands.

Kochin chicken, a species of chicken unique to Aichi Prefecture are well-known for the tasty chicken meat they produce. Pyorin represents the kochin chicken by using the kochin eggs in its production. This makes Pyorin a specialty unique to Nagoya. They are created by crumbling soft sponge cake over pudding made from kochin eggs, which is then wrapped in a vanilla mousse and molded into the shape of fluffy baby chicks.

A Tokai Food Services representative revealed that originally each chick was hand-made by one of their female pâtissiers, giving each expression on the face of the chick different variations of an adorable look. ”You can enjoy their cute appearance along with the smooth sweetness which melts in your mouth with every bite.”

When they first hit the shelves, only around 5,000 to 8,000 Pyorin were being sold per month. However, after receiving an award from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries’ food preparation division, monthly sales soured to 15,000 to 20,000 a month.

They continued to do well and reached an all time high in sales of 14,000 for the month of August, including sales of limited time only products. But according to the Tokai Foods Services spokesperson, although the sales took off, the production process took a lot of trial and error to reach that point.

The spokesperson says “It was very difficult to get the right consistency of the vanilla mousse for it to keep it from losing its shape. We also worked hard on drawing out the flavor of the kochin eggs so we had to make sure the vanilla mousse sweetness wasn’t too overpowering. The chocolate shaped wings are hand-made, making mass production impossible. We can only produce enough for three hours of take home sales a day. That is why they are only sold at Nagoya Station, making them that much more of a novelty.”

People who have eaten Pyorin talk of how difficult it is to bite into that cute little face. Most agree that it is best to take the first bite from the back.

Pyorin is popular among older customers who claim their grandchildren love them. Children can’t help but love the different time limited seasonal Pyorinthey have offered. To present, they have come up with limited-edition Halloween, Christmas, Valentine's and a special green tea version of Pyroin.

The fall version of Pyorin went on sale from Sept 14 for a limited period until Oct 8. Instead of a vanilla mousse, they will use a sweet potato mousse, with a chocolate covered almond for the comb, and a side decoration of a sugar glazed slice of sweet potato.

Pyorin can be eaten out only at the Cafe Janjyanu Rejie at Nagoya Station and sell for 300 yen a piece. If you happen to find yourselves in Nagoya Station with a little time on your hands, why not give this special treat a try.

Source: Exite News Bit

© RocketNews24

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.


4 Comments
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Too cute to bite off its little face.........oh this makes my morning!

1 ( +1 / -0 )

The irony - people have no qualms about eating actual chicken flesh, not to mention cute little lambkins, piglet and moo-cow. no problem, as long as it looks like an indeterminate meat product in a white tray, covered in batter/ breadcrumbs / sauce, and clingfilm.

But dress up a piece of egg pudding, and it. is. just. too. adorable. for. words.

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

This is just too cute! Kawaii sugiru!

1 ( +1 / -0 )

i think i'm more the type to go for the braincake they show off in the extra dvd you get with tekken tag 2 ... japanese are just a little more crazy in about everything then?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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