Interviewer: Children’s day is coming soon – will there be any special cakes? If so, why did you decide to make such a cake?

Chef Mike: So the Koinobori cake is special for Children’s Day on May 5, which we celebrate in Japan. The cake itself is a chiffon roll with chocolate cream and fresh banana inside. It is designed to look like the koi fish. Families in Japan fly the “Koinobori” banner for each child in their house. Should we say flag or a kite? It’s swimming uphill or up the shore. So we kind of designed it to look like that. It has the little fish eye and the fins and the strawberry scales for a nice kind of cute cake.

We’ve been doing special holiday cakes for the Japanese holidays. A lot of places around here obviously don’t do that. We did get a few requests when we first opened years ago for Girls’ Day, the Hinamatsuri Cakes. So we decided to do specials for other holidays as well, not just the standard ones here in the US.

It’s been fairly popular, and we also do tend to get people that just think it’s a nice, cool, new-looking cake. So we get a lot of orders from people that don’t even know what Children’s Day is, and they’ll still purchase a cake because it looks fun and something new.

The texture of Koinobori cake, it’s lighter, not heavy sugar with whipped cream. And our chocolate cream has a kind of rich chocolate taste without being heavy. And then the fresh fruit inside, it’s a seven-inch cake. It can serve probably like five or six people.

We are currently accepting orders, and they’ll be available for pickup between May 1st and 5th.

I’d say this cake would be perfect for celebrating your children, and boys in particular, because there is Girls’ day on March 3. So why not celebrate boys?

Chef Misuzu:  I don’t know why we don’t call it Boys’ Day for this, but we call it Children’s Day in Japan. I’m not sure why, but we all know that this is for boys.

Interviewer: I like that. Celebrating the boys, that’s important. If the fish does look like it’s swimming, which is the most important thing is that it’s swimming upstream. Right?

Chef Misuzu:  Right. Rising in the sky, I think.