Croissants! — As Seen In Japan

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One thing that might surprise you about Japan is that it’s full of bakeries. Some are good, some are meh, but most of them have a lot of variety. However, this past week, we found a new bakery in our neighborhood that makes one thing and one thing only: delicious croissants!

The bakery is called “9683,” and as far as I know, it’s the only bakery in Kobe dedicated solely to traditional and non-traditional French croissants. It’s a bit off the beaten path, located on a side street a couple blocks from the station, and is quite small, but we love croissants at our house, so we had to give it a try.

“9683” is a joke in Japanese, based on the Japanese words for those numbers. 9 is “Ku.” 6 is “Roku.” 8 is “Hachi.” Three is “San.”

So 9-6-8-3 is "Ku-Roku-Hachi-San.”

Ku-Ro-Ha-San.

Croissant!

Get it?

They had maybe 10 types of croissants as well as tea. We got four that looked good, took them home, and gobbled them up. Our selections were plain, lemon, kinako, and white chocolate.

How did they taste?

Plain: My wife and I bring different levels of expertise to the croissant game. She knows how to make them, but I’ve actually been to France before. I’ve taught her that when you get an actually good croissant in France, it doesn’t fall apart and make a huge mess like cheap ones do. She’s taught me how much butter is in them and why I’m so fat.

I’m happy to report that this one did not fall apart. It held its structure and allowed us to enjoy its fabulous taste. It also, as Eriko noted, was lighter in butter than the kind we’re used to. The meant it had more of the bread flavor, and that these bakers were skilled enough to make a quality croissant without a sickening amount of butter.

Lemon: This guy was delicious. Not only did it have sweet powder on the top, but little bits of lemon inside. The mix of sweet and sour went perfectly with the bread. I wanted 40 more of these.

Kinako: You probably don’t know what kinako is, and that’s okay. It’s usually a mochi topping, and something we really like. However, when put on a croissant, there was something about it that didn’t work for me. The flavors felt incongruous. Eriko liked this one, but I did not.

White chocolate: Definitely sweet. The danger in this combination is that it would be too sweet. It came close, but had just the right amount of topping. A nice dessert option to finish up our croissant meal.

Full of food, my verdict would be that I liked them all except kinako, and would rank them Lemon/WC/Plain/Kinako. Eriko liked them all and would rank them all #1.

If you’re ever in Kobe, check out 9683, and when you visit Japan, don’t shy away from the bakeries, because there are some great ones!