Imagine you have a Shinkansen to catch from Tokyo Station in 10 minutes. You're about to head through the gates when it dawns on you...you've forgotten to buy any souvenirs for the folks back home. Panic sets in. They'll think you're ungrateful! You need to get something, but time is running out.
There's only one option in this situation. You buy Tokyo Banana.
The venerable banana-custard treat is both the defining omiyage of the Japanese capital and one of the least exciting gift options one can opt for. It's so ubiquitous at this point that buying it as a present for the folks outside of Kanto is like buying Macadamia from Hawaii...tasty, but an admission of having no idea what to get. So...hope you like banana flavor!
Family Mart recently linked up with Tokyo Banana for a series of items that is, admittedly, more exciting than the usual box of snacks. Most of it leans towards desserts, incorporating the same banana taste (and custard cream) into new forms, like a cream puff or roll cake. The most intriguing of the bunch is the Tokyo Banana milk, but alas it was sold out at my nearby store.
So instead it was the waffle cone ice cream. Credit where it is due — Tokyo Banana's flavor features a more authentic fruit taste rather than the usual artificial banana flavor that ruins so much candy and sweets around the world. The ice cream captures it well, almost to being too subtle overall, but offering a nice variation on the konbini soft cream genre. And a reminder of, even if it isn't the most original gift, why Tokyo Banana persists.
