Karuizawa Toast on TV

Wow! …that was fast. Karuizawa Toast was introduced on nationwide Japanese television this week.  They asked this blogger to escort a fairly well known Japanese actress around Karuizawa and talk about Karuizawa’s wonderful french toast.

Needless to say, it was fun!

There are currently about two dozen venues in Karuizawa that offer “Karuizawa Toast” (French toast available in Karuizawa).

Here’s the Japanese video.

And… Sorry about the video quality… it was created by hand shooting a tv with an iPhone, and edited on an iPad. It’s a bit shaky!

 

Karuizawa Toast

I’ve created a Japanese language Facebook page devoted to all the wonderful French toast dishes available in Karuizawa, Japan’s premier mountain resort town. Currently there are over twenty cafés, restaurants, hotels, inns, and bakeries that offer French toast dishes.

The Facebook page is called “Karuizawa Toast” and is updated several times a week. Content includes photos, comments, trivia and history, and a google map to all the places that serve French toast.

Karuizawa has a long history of leading the Japanese nation into new culinary trends. Recent examples include the specialty coffee shop boom, the popularity of pancake restaurants & cafés, and the increasing number of Brazilian acai bowl dishes popping up all over the country. All of these trends had their beginnings in Karuizawa over the past decade or so.

French toast has a long history in Karuizawa as well. Karuizawa’s classic Mampei Hotel has been serving French toast since the immediate post war period, nearly seven decades ago.

Karuizawa has all the precursors for terrific French toast, too. Many high quality bakeries in town, excellent milk and egg producers in the region, numerous locally produced jams, preserves, honeys, a large cadre of highly talented chefs, and affluent consumers demanding all the best. Karuizawa may have the perfect French toast storm building in the mountains of Nagano prefecture.

Kevin’s Bar

I opened a wine bar in the resort town of Karuizawa (^O^)／

Kevin’s Bar is a “one coin” casual standing bar about two minutes walk from the north exit of Karuizawa Station. Glasses of wine and beer are 500 yen, which is one coin in Japanese currency.

Please feel free to stop by anytime. I post regular updates at the Kevin’s Bar page on Facebook.

BTW, Karuizawa is a gorgeous mountain area where John Lennon and Yoko Ono spent their summers together. It’s also where the current emperor of Japan met the empress playing tennis. Tokyo’s rich and famous converge on Karuizawa each year to escape the oppressive summer heat in the worlds largest metropolitan area.

Here is a pic of the front of my bar.