GloboMaestro beta Travel on the Inside

As a child growing up in Kobe, Japan, I used to stop by a bakery on the way back from school every day to pick up mochi and manju — the yummiest rice cakes you can ever imagine. They're traditional treats: mochi are sticky rice cakes made from pounding steamed rice, and manju are made from flour, rice and buckwheat, and often filled with red bean paste.

These days I get my sweet rice-cake fix in Japantown — and there's only one place to go. Literally. Benkyodo is a seriously old-school confectioner, and is the last place in town still making these specialty sweets. In fact, the business is still owned by the same Okamura family who were one of J-Town's founding store owners when they started Benkyodo in 1906. (During WWII the business closed, and the family was relocated to an internment camp, before re-opening in 1959 in its current location just opposite the Peace Pagoda).

Walking into Benkyodo is like walking into old Japan — in fact, the store was rebuilt with some of the same materials from the original joint on Geary Street, and of course its core business is its homemade manju and mochi, all freshly baked on the premises.

Personally, I'm a sucker for some of the traditional varieties like imo (white lima beans with cinnamon coating) and kashiwa, which is soft and gooey and wrapped in oak leaves (FYI: it's only made in May, around the celebration of Japanese Children's Day on May 5). But you've also got to check out some of the more modern concoctions like the pink mochi filled with peanut butter, chocolate marshmallow mochi and blueberry mochi.

It's a small place, with only a few seats, but Benkyodo is more of a destination bakery for some of the best Japanese delicacies to-go. A word to the wise: it's cash only, and make sure you get there early — the popular flavors tend to sell out by noon.

• Bakery
• Dessert
• Family
• Food and Drink
• Japanese

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