Gateau Festa Harada

What we love…

• In Tokyo you know something is good if there's a line up forming—especially when it comes to food—Gateau Festa Harada is one of those places.
• Although Gateau Festa Harada sells a variety of sweets the main attraction is the rusk, and no matter what time of day you arrive there seems to be a line up of excited people waiting patiently for their turn to purchase boxes of these crispy treats.
• A rusk is bread that has been thinly sliced, dried, and browned in the oven. To most North Americans they look like melba toast, and most Europeans would probably see them as biscuits—but these are really neither.  The Japanese rusk is often coated with just enough sugar, chocolate, frosting, or cinnamon to make them a delicious dessert like indulgence.
• Other shops carry rusks, as a matter of fact you can score them in most traditional bakeries, however Gateau Festa Harada is by far the most popular due to their killer Gouter de Roi (covered in white chocolate), and the original Gouter de Roi which is the classic covered in sugar. 
• Waiting in a line that snaked outside the building we really couldn't imagine that sugar and bread could warrant this kind of wait—it is just bread and sugar after all, but after we polished off a box of those sweet crispy treats we can see why these are a local favorite.
• Need to get your math geek on to be convinced that this glorified sugared piece of melba toast is worth it? Gateau Festa Harada currently produces 500 000 rusks a day for the Gouter de Roi brand, and has such high demand that all purchases need to be in person, and are limited to 3 boxes.