An Iconic Japanese Dessert - the Cream Anmitsu

Editor’s Food Notes
It’s the sweetest treasure of Japanese foods, and I genuinely feel bad for anyone who hasn’t tried the Cream Anmitsu. It’s an elegant dessert that’s been appreciated by the Japanese for decades and decades. If I must do a comparison to a Western dessert….it’s a parfait… and I feel terrible for degrading the Cream Anmitsu to a mere Cornflake, ice cream, and chocolate syrup layered American diner favorite, but the concept is similar.

Served in a bowl, the bottom layer of a Cream Anmitsu is made of small cubes of agar jelly, a white translucent jelly made from red algae or seaweed. Next comes the sweet azuki bean paste or anko (the ‘an‘ part of the name ‘anmitsu’), boiled peas and a variety of fruits such as peach slices, mikan (orange slices), dried apricot, and maybe a cherry. A bonus in some Cream Anmitsus is the Shiratama dango (rice glutinous balls).

Cream Anmitsu I ate in a famous Ginza shop called Kanoko

As seen in the left picture, the anmitsu usually comes with a small pot of sweet black syrup, or mitsu (the mitsu part of ‘anmitsu‘) which you pour over the dessert before eating. Adding a scoop of vanilla or green tea ice cream makes a variation of the dessert, called Cream Anmitsu.

The best part of the dessert too is that it takes your taste buds to a very authentic Japanese experience. In a country now flooded with French pastries and American-influenced cinnamon buns and Krispy Creme donuts, shops and restaurants selling Cream Anmitsu are usually very wa-fu(traditional Japanese style) in their atmosphere and presentation. Here’s by far the best Cream Anmitsu shop I’ve found in Japan - located near Narita airport, called Miyoshiya.

Open Terrace Cafe - Miyoshiya 三芳家, Narita (at the approach to Narita Shinsho-Ji), Chiba

We're seated beside a garden!

Bitter-Sweet Contrast -Cream Anmitsu served with Iced Matcha and Tsukemono

Now you get why it’s hard to compare it to a typical parfait? It’s really an intricate process to make this dessert concoction - that explains why you don’t often see this dessert in North America. The time it takes to make it versus how much profit can be made from it just don’t match up. It’s much easier for Japanese restaurants to just stick with the green tea ice cream as its sole dessert item. But there is one delicious Cream Anmitsu I tried, oddly enough in Calgary, Alberta by Chef Tomo Mitsuno. He put a very nice twist to the dessert by arranging it in a martini glass, lightly deep-frying the red bean paste in a batter, and topping it off with some fresh pineapples and pomegranate.

Cream Anmitsu by Tomo Mitsuno