The Asia Trip: Apple Croissant

I got this little baby at a bakery at Shin-Yokohama Station before we boarded the bullet train for Kyoto.  The caramelized sugar coating its crust especially caught my eye.
Baked goods and bakeries are quite popular in Japan.  The bakeries are European-style adapted to Japanese tastes and feature a fairly large selection of European and Japanese breads and pastries.  Walking down the street in the morning, you can smell the freshly baked breads and pastries as they're set out in their displays.  All you have to do is grab a tray and tong and not get too carried away.  They really like to wrap each pastry individually in bags, even if you buy enough for a box (they just put the bags in the box).  It's a bit wasteful but I'm told packaging is very important in Japanese culture.

As you can see, the pastry is made of fillo-dough and has buttery croissant-type layers with just a little bit of apple crumb in the middle.  It was very tasty, the crust was very crisp while the inside was soft, airy, and buttery with just a hint of apple.  Most of the bakeries in Japan are quite good if you ever get a chance to go.