Aka renga

I lived in Yokohama from 1996 - 1999. At the time, there was a lot of developments in the Minato Mirai district. These included restoration and rehabilitation work for many structures in what used to be a major part of the Port of Yokohama. These included former warehouses made of red brick - aka renga - in area that was designated as a park dedicated to these red brick buildings. The restoration and preservation of these red brick buildings and others like it that have been declared as national, prefectural or even city treasures because of their historical or heritage value are most admirable and among the things we could learn from. 

And then there is the commercial aspect of this initiative, which includes holding events in the area as well as selling merchandise with the theme of aka renga. Quite fittingly, I got a box of aka renga-themed delights as omiyage (souvenir or pasalubong) from a student of my second adviser when he visited a few months ago to discuss data collection for his research.

The box was wrapped in paper featuring a print of one of the red brick buildings.

Detailed information on the product is at the back including info stating that it was indeed manufactured in Yokohama.

After removing the wrapper, a simpler box is revealed.

The soft caramel nut cakes are individually wrapped.

The content of each pack was what looked like a lemon square.

A closer look shows crushed almonds on top of a few layers of caramel and pastry.

The bar looks like a slice of sans rival but it is more like a caramel bar. The consistency is like that but in my opinion it tastes much better than your regular caramel bar. Is it the best one around? Probably not and there will be others that would likely be better than this bar but this one's good for a souvenir item.

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