Growing up in my hometown, the local mall (indoor shopping complex) was the best place to go if you had literally nothing to do. The mall had clothes to shop for, a large food court if you were hungry, and stores to get things fixed ranging from watches to cellphones. The mall was the epitome of a teenager`s playground, a place to hang out with your friends and kill a few hours or so. For me, clothes shopping and chilling with friends was usually the main two reasons I would go to the mall. The third, not-as-important reason was to eat some junk food- cookies, cakes, doughnuts- you name it. My local mall had two of my favorite snack stores, one that is now opening up stores in Japan and the other had tried to enter the Japanese market in the past, but pulled out because Japan was not ready for the sweetness of its taste yet (except now I personally think they should make a comeback here like how Wendy`s hamburgers did). I am talking about Auntie Anne`s Pretzels and Mrs. Field`s Cookies; both wonderful carb delights and both utterly satisfying. When it comes to giant soft pretzels and moist, soft cookies, just give me a glass of milk and I am good to go!

I knew Japan had cookies, though it is hard to find the soft and moist kind, but soft pretzels were an uncommon item around Tokyo. Excluding the entrance of Auntie Anne`s into Japan, most places did not have a soft pretzel store. With that said, my discovery in Kamakura, Kanagawa would leave my fellow expat friend and I staring at each other with a “What??” look on our faces.

My friend and I had taken a side trip to Kamakura to check out the famous giant Buddha (Daibutsu). On our way to see the Buddha from the local train station, we saw a small glass display of soft pretzels hanging on the inside, and a menu. There were apparently three kinds of pretzels: regular/salt, spicy cheese, and cream cheese. Churros and funnel cakes were also included on the menu (a churro is a fried stick of dough covered in cinnamon/sugar and a funnel cake is batter twisted around , fried, and topped with sugar/fruit/whipped cream…depending on the variation). The image of the pretzels never left our minds as we passed the store, causing us to contemplate trying out the pretzels on our way back.

As we passed the store a second time coming back, we caved in and decided to go in for one. The cafe, Sunset Hills, is located on the upper floor because the bottom floor is all simply for display. On the upper floor, customers can sit down and enjoy some other choices aside from the fried snacks or make the pretzels into a set meal. My friend and I only wanted the pretzels, settling on the spicy cheese pretzel to-go. Let me tell you, this place took a long time to get two pretzels ready. At first I thought they were making the pretzels from scratch since it took so long for them to prepare it all, but boy was I totally wrong. When the server brought us out our pretzels, disappointment hovered in our eyes. The pretzel looked like one of those pre-made pretzels that you just have to pop into the oven for quick preparation…except that was not the worst part. The “spicy cheese” part was literally, two slices of processed American cheese placed over the pretzel, heated to make it melt, then sprinkled with some chili powder. My friend and I smiled as we headed out, trying to hide our disappointment in the pretzel and the price.

Eating it did not make up for the pretzel either, as it was kind of like biting into a partially hard grilled cheese sandwich with a slight kick from the chili powder. I will give points to Sunset Hills for their helpful staff and at least serving us a warm pretzel; however, next time I think I will head over to my local shopping mall here in Japan and hunt down an Auntie Anne`s store for fresh made-in-front-of-my-eyes soft pretzels.

Would I come back again? No. Plain and simple. If their pretzels are like this, I do not even want to know how the churros or funnel cakes look or taste like. Maybe their lunch sets not including the pretzels might be good, but I will not be going back to find out.

More information on the Sunset Hills website:
http://www.sunset-hills.jp/sitemap.html

Eat Well,
T.W.