Photo/Illutration Various jellies, fruit and sponge cake make up this realistic seafood rice bowl cake. (Photo taken in Nabari, Mie Prefecture, by Takashi Konishi)

Set aside those chopsticks and pick up a fork, friends. It’s time to dig into some sweet, sweet blasphemy.

On Aug. 1, the diabolically creative minds at Okashi no Buttiku Mon Pactole (Sweets Boutique My Jackpot) in Mie Prefecture added a limited “kaisen-don” cake to its menu.

This eight-part seafood bowl of betrayal includes strawberry jelly masquerading as top-tier cuts of “otoro” (fatty Pacific bluefin tuna) and mandarin oranges posing as sea urchin.

“It will definitely confuse you,” said patissier Masahiro Sugimoto of the Higashitawara district shop in Nabari.

Sugimoto and the rest of the team behind the cake are confident that it will give customers a delicious sense of whiplash.

Bite into the squid sashimi and it will reveal itself as milk jelly. The scallops are pears, while the fatty salmon and roe are both orange jelly.

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Pastry chef Masahiro Sugimoto was one of the creators of the lookalike cake. (Photo taken in Nabari, Mie Prefecture, by Takashi Konishi)

The final surprise under everything is the rice, or rather, slices of coffee flavored sponge cake with whipped cream in between.

The bowl is not cake. Please do not eat the bowl.

Perfecting the illusion took Sugimoto, who has worked as a pastry chef for the last seven years, and his colleagues a month.

“We were quite particular about the presentation and added the white streaks on the fatty tuna and salmon using milk jelly,” said Sugimoto, 25.

The group even went as far as adding mundane details—the green “wasabi” paste is made of fresh cream and the cake comes with a little fish-shaped bottle of soy sauce that sometimes accompanies seafood bowls.

Rest assured, this one is safe to drizzle over the cake. It’s filled with “kuromitsu” (brown sugar syrup) instead of soy sauce.

Since the midst of the pandemic in 2022, the shop has experimented with making rice bowl cakes.

Past hits include “katsu” (deep-fried pork cutlet) and “unagi” eel bowls. The less structured mapo tofu with cubed tofu and minced meat was another undertaking.

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It took the confectionery shop's team a month to create the "kaisen-don" seafood rice bowl cake that is available until Aug. 31. (Photo taken in Nabari, Mie Prefecture, by Takashi Konishi)

Beyond the realm of rice-based dishes, the confectionery shop somehow pulled off re-creating a bowl of “toshikoshi soba” (traditional New Year’s Eve buckwheat noodles). The idea was to make cakes for customers to enjoy at home.

As the bar for realism went up, shop owner Shigeko Oishi was among those to suggest creating the colorful seafood bowl.

The kaisen-don cake is available until Aug. 31.

Please note that the shop is closed on Mondays. Its website can be reached at https://monpactole.com/ 

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