Tomonaga Bakery

友永パン屋 A Bakery Popular with Locals

Although it's one of the highly recommended places to visit, we didn't plan to go to Tomonaga Bakery. We were walking around on the way back from Asami Shrine and happened to pass it. This bakery has been around for almost 100 years. There was a line out the door and people took numbers inside the tiny store to wait their turn. It doesn't seem like a touristy place at all, just a lot of locals stopping by on their lunch hour or to pick up their bread for the week. We considered picking up a couple things to try and I asked if it was good to one of the locals waiting outside. He motioned inside saying that of course it's good with that kind of line. He said the anpan was the best. We checked the little laminated menu on the door and picked out a few yummy sounding breads. Inside, there's a stack of small paper (waxy bakery paper, of course) and pencils to write down what you want. There are at least five staff running around filling orders and bringing in fresh bread. One of the cute products is called Wan-Chan, a dog face shaped custard filled bread. We decided to try the anpan, both Ogura (tsubu-an) and koshi-an varieties. We also got a paw-shaped Jam-pan filled with apple jam, and a choco France, soft roll with plenty of chocolate filling. Edit: I went back and bought some of the same plus the cheese France which is so nice. This is super affordable compared with most bread shops! There isn't any seating area inside the store. It's a very small storefront with the baking in a back room and potentially storage or housing on the second floor. The building is old and charming but well kept. We ate the bread later back in the hostel, with a cup of hot coffee. Everything was yummy, but the (koshi) an-pan was the best, like we heard from the local.