Ruskology 101

I never heard of the term "rusk" until my parents chanced upon this long line outside the Osaka Gateau Festa Harada (GFH) store at Hanshin Umeda, and decided to buy their products back for us to try. You may have already read my post on leaf pies, which featured another product of GFH's. But their signature item is their rusk- bread that is toasted until it is *completely* crispy through and through, and I have two to share about today.

First up is their classic rusk - butter sugar rusk, or Gouter de Roi as they call it.

Each "individually-wrapped" packet comes with two pieces. The crunch is perfect, and the sugar and buttery fragrance make this perfect and addictive comfort food. The ingredients used are also very pure, with no margarine.

The second variant is an autumn seasonal flavour - Hors d'oeuvre Rusk Sommelier. This time, the pieces are truly individually wrapped.

Hors d'oeuvre means appetiser, and sommelier is a waiter/waitress who's in charge of the wines. So this is a savoury rusk, in contrast to the usual sweet ones. And it is meant to accompany (or be accompanied by, whatever XD) wine.

It has an impressive ingredients list including natural cheese, porcini mushrooms, *truffles*, chicken consomme powder, basil, black pepper, nutmeg and, I have no idea why, malt. Of course, they use only butter and no margarine.

I was really impressed by the flavour... it was rich and I could clearly taste the high quality mushrooms in it, which was what led me to check out the ingredients in the first place. I think the ingredients list probably speaks better than I can describe the flavour.

I would rank GFH's rusk (especially Hors d'oeuvre) very highly on anyone's must-try list if you so much as drop by Japan even for one day. They have stores in Tokyo and around the country, including Kyuushuu. And they even have one in China too! Oh please open one in Singapore soon... *_*