Tag: Akita

It’s the gift you both can share

Because it’s gonna take at least two of you to finish it up, that’s for sure. At least, if your valentine is entomophobic.

Komatsuya Honten, a bakery in Akita, bakes treats in the shape of rhinoceros beetles and their larvae. No worries, as they’re straight-up chocolate, but they look just like the critters some of you used to catch and keep in your childhood. Not me, as I never went after animals bigger than me. As nasty as they might look, they sometimes sell out within an hour, says the shop keeper.

Writer Matt Alt tried the ¥2,100 “Kabuto-Mushi Cake Lovely Pack,” which crawled with two larvae candies and a beetle cake. They sound pretty tasty:

The beetles are cake enrobed in a rich dark chocolate, with chocolate-dipped fruit slices used for thin parts like legs and horns. The larvae are milk chocolate with crisped rice mixed in…

So, remember: human ears taste like chicken, bugs taste like chocolate and the continued existence of this shop tastes like victory in the War on Animals.

Shelters up, ho’s down

So the missiles (or “satellites” or “debris” or just whatever that they’re calling them right now) have put the scare into some Japanese people, as they’re calling about and some even buying bomb shelters now.

Hmmm. Imagine that.

Once bitten, twice shy? No more messing around is more like it, now that North Korea is sending up god-knows-what over there. Osaka-based Shelter Co (awesome name, by the way-it gets right to the point about what is sold) said that they received 12 orders for “household nuclear shelters” shelters lately. That may not sound like much, but company president Seiichiro Nishimoto is pretty impressed, saying that this number is a record for the 30 years he has been in business. On top of that, he says that he’s received about 150 inquiries on shelters.

“Japanese want to be prepared. I expect the number of orders to increase,” said Nishimoto.

The Daily Telegraph says that most of the orders for the 2.8 million yen shelters have come from Akita and Iwate prefectures, both of which sit right under the missile path. Better safe than sorry, right guys? Still, if 12 orders is a record for your business of 30 years, isn’t that considered a failure?