Japanese cuisine is known for their light flavours and seasonal ingredients, with influences from their surrounding neighbours such as China and Korea. They’re also quite particular to some good French food, where technique mastery is the key to the best dishes, and it’s evident in how many of these techniques they’ve adopted and integrated into Japanese cuisine. From pale, tender omelettes on their omuraisu and demiglace hamburger sauces to soufflé everything, it’s easy to find French influence in a lot of Japan’s modern or Western-style dishes.
Throughout our time in Japan, we ate plenty of French food, oftentimes adapted with Japanese flavours such as a houjicha crème brulée in Uji. But one thing we knew was that Western-style pastries in Japan was on our list of to-eats, and what better way to do that than to visit a cake buffet? There are plenty of cake buffet options in Japan, with chains like Sweets Paradise dotted throughout the country to more luxurious options like those in hotel restaurants. In any case, sweets buffets have their own culture in Japan, and we wanted in.
Understandably, some buffets can get quite pricy, especially those that are done by hotels or boutique fruit stores (yes, those are a thing). However, we wanted to go somewhere that wasn’t a chain without blowing our budget, so we did (an embarrassingly large amount of) research of what some options are and discovered a boutique patisserie that was very reasonably priced.
Patisserie Sucre Hishiya Honten シュクレ 菱屋本店
Patisserie Sucre Hishiya is located about 20-30 minutes’ train ride outside of central Osaka, with an all-you-can-eat cake option for a surprisingly low ¥1,500 (UX$13.60) for 90 minutes of eating, with 2 complimentary drinks from a selected list which includes coffee, tea, and juices. The buffet requires phone reservation (which we recommend you do through your Japan accommodation provider) and is available on weekdays between 12pm and 5pm.
The café has the cakes displayed in the cabinet. You will need to approach the counter to order your cakes, which will be delivered to your table. You are allowed a maximum of 2 cakes per person each round of eating, though of course no limit to how many rounds within your 90 minute window. This seemed straightforward enough, and we couldn’t wait to dig in. But the cakes itself were likely not as they seemed.
Our Experience
Ever eaten something that’s rich and eaten too much just because it’s good and you’re hungry and it’s there and there’s plenty of it and when’s the next time you’ll eat something like this again and then you end up feeling exceptionally nauseous because of all the greasiness and you feel gluttonous and regret all of your actions leading up to said moment? Yes, this was us, but only at about 4 cakes in each.
Now we’re not the kind of people who eat things like cream cakes or heavy foods all that often or in large quantities, so understandably eating that quantity of cake might become a little bit too much. But there was something about these desserts that were just a little different from anything we’d had before, and it seemed that the surrounding tables (as well as some of the Japanese reviewers online!) were all experiencing the same thing. All good for 2 rounds and suddenly knocked out at round 3 like the cakes each contained a fifth of the maximum limit.
Don’t get us wrong – it’s not as if the cakes are of bad quality, or the shop has bad hygiene. It didn’t feel as if we’d come down with food poisoning, which certainly wouldn’t have been as fast as within 90 minutes if the effects were as mild as they had been. And it’s not as if we can’t normally handle that level of greasy food – we recently completed a doughnut buffet horking down 11 large decorated doughnuts between the two of us in only 15 minutes.
We’re no dairy scientists but we suspect that the reason why we all experienced this was because of the cream, for two reasons: firstly, the quantity, as Japanese cakes tend to be gorgeously presented and the cream acts as decorative additions as well as a part of the cake itself. No doubt these cakes were exceptionally generous with the cream (perhaps a little too much, in favour of the actual cake and the toppings).
This wouldn’t normally be too bad, as a little bit of tea can help wash down whipped cream fine, but we also suspect that the cream may not be 100% cream, and instead partially substituted with a non-dairy fat. This isn’t misleading or bad in any sense. These kinds of cream are common foodservice ingredients that help to keep cream products shelf-stable and prevent it from splitting or oxidising during storage. It just becomes a little overwhelming when so much is consumed at once, and you can feel it coating your mouth and throat with a slight waxy film as compared to the velvety, melting texture of dairy fats.
We certainly didn’t outline any of this in order to put anyone off, but rather to perhaps bring to light things that may impact your experience at a dessert buffet. Are these cakes good? Of course! We definitely enjoyed the first two or three before we started feeling queasy, so there’s no reason why you shouldn’t pop in for a visit if you just want to try a slice if you happen to be in the area. But if you are hoping to visit Sucre Hishiya for a dessert buffet, we recommend ordering tea or coffee without milk as your beverages. The bitter tannins in the tea and coffee will bind to the fats in the cream to reduce the richness of the cake.
Patisserie Sucre Hishiya Hontenシュクレ 菱屋本店
1 Chome-12-24 Hishiyanishi, Higashiosaka, Osaka 577-0807, Japan
Mon-Sun 10am-8pm
Note: Please remember that due to the pandemic there may be different rules around buffets and all-you-can-eat services and establishments. Please check before making any plans. Prices may also have changed since our visit in June 2019.
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