Nordic findings in japan

You can find Nordic cafés & restaurants in Japan on this blog, but here is some other stuff I bumped into during my trip there !

Nordic-inspired Japanese items

I saw some cute objects connected to Nordic cultures, as a gacha-gacha machine where you could get a Marimekko-looking item keychain! It was called Kippis, what the Finns say when toasting.

It is also not surprising that Japanese and Asian people find Dala horses cute, and that’s what I saw on the cover of a journal. Was kinda tempted to get it!

Moomin!

MOE magazine was featuring Moomins in the current issue. Moomins are pretty popular in Japan and represent an iconic symbol of Finnish culture. This issue had many pages about Finland and Finnish bakeries in Japan among others as well.

A Moomin pop-up cafe closed just before I left, and Mcdonalds has Moomin toys in their happy meal right now! Too bad I was either late or early.

I was also very tempted to visit the Metsä in Hanno (near Tokyo), メッツァ公式, a Nordic-themed park with Finland-like nature and a lake, Nordic/Finnish-brands, shops and restaurants, and the Moominvalley park in it!

Nordic food with a Japanese twist

Fun Fact: all-you-can-eat style fusion buffet restaurants are usually called Viking – バイキング – in Japan. The idea behing the name originates from Smörgåsbord (buffet) restaurants, that a restaurant manager from Tokyo’s Imperial Hotel saw in Sweden. As Smörgåsbord is not the easiest word for a Japanese, the word viking was adopted instead! (Source: tofugu.com)

Speaking of Sweden, IKEA is, all over the world, the place to go for Swedish food, with its rather cheap restaurant and bistrot. Japan is no exception, but it has its local twist, and I got to try Sweet Potato soft ice cream!! Sweet Potato is a very common seasonal flavour during Autumn in Japan.

You also have a chain called Danish Bar, selling roll-shaped danish pastries. Nothing particularly Danish besides the wienerbrød-ish dough though.

I was walking around in Takayama, Gifu prefecture, when I bumped into a Karjalanpiirakka/Carelian Pie being sold at a cafe called Tori coffee, the iconic Finnish Rice pudding Pie as it was named here!! I had to immediately interact with the person at the counter and ask about it, and I found out the baker had actually been in Finland! I was too full from Japanese food to eat one, but it looked delicious.

Days later, I found Finnish bakeries, cafes and restaurants in Japan being showed off in the MOE Moomin-themed magazine I mentioned above.

The TRANSIT magazine featured a section about the New Nordic Bread Movement, with among others an article about Åland.

While browsing magazines and books in Kinokinuya 7-floor bookshop, I found Time in Scandinavia – what the world’s happiest people have taught me (北欧時間 世界一幸せな国の人たちが教えてくれたこと) by Inko Higurashi.

I also bumped into what seemed an elederly/daycare house called with the Swedish name of Merhälsa and a shop called Kiitos, Looking up online you find either a cafe, a character merch shop, and a cookie/chocolate manifacturer, but none of these seem to be related to Finland?

Follow for more Nordic-related stuff, wherever it may be!