Tōkyō Banana is one of the most popular omiyage to bring home for those visiting Tōkyō. Launched in 1991, is hugely popular with both people around Japan and foreigners abroad, despite other regional spin-offs like ‘Ōsaka Banana’. This here is the original Tōkyō Banana Miitsuketa.
Earlier, we’d tried the Tōkyō Banana Tree, a limited edition available only at Tōkyō Skytree in 2014 that featured a leopard print sponge with chocolate banana cream filling.
The original Tōkyō Banana Miitsuketa is a light and airy sponge filled with a strained banana custard purée.
Each cake is a cute mini-banana shape with a pale yellow coloured sponge.
The cake is well-known for its soft texture achieved by baking and then steaming the sponge.
There’s a mellow aroma of banana and egg-based sponge, while it’s the pillowy soft with its lightly sweet egg flavour that is most evident on first tasting. The sponge itself is not banana flavoured, which allows full appreciation of its light and airy qualities before reaching the banana custard. The custard has a pleasantly smooth and creamy texture with a gentle banana flavour that recalled perfectly ripe bananas. The light egg flavour of the soft sponge complements well with the creaminess and mellow banana notes of the custard.
This Tōkyō Banana Miitsuteka contained 8 pieces. It was produced in Japan and gifted from colleagues visiting Tōkyō, Japan in 2108.