Octopus Balls (2005-01-09)
There's little doubt Japanese like to eat octopus. This seafood is featured on the menu of many restaurants and also in the fish section of supermarkets. A very popular snacks here is called takoyaki (tako means octopus and yaki means fried, baked or grilled). They are ball-shaped savory pancakes with a piece of octopus in the center. These are cooked in a special pan with indented circles to hold the batter. The cook has to keep turning and rolling the batter to form a ball shape once the batter starts to harden.
Takoyaki is always eaten with mayonnaise, a sauce that tastes like
Worcestershire sauce and dried seaweed flakes. I usually don't
like this snack much because I find the batter too thick and
floury. But I will make an exception for those sold in a tiny
shop just inside Sun Mall in Nakano (
).
The chef there adds grated
ginger in the batter which adds a wonderfully refreshing and pungent
flavor to the octopus balls and the outside of the balls is cooked till
it's a little crunchy. Their takoyaki tastes far better than any
I have eaten, and there's often a line of people at the counter buying
this snack.
In Kansai area people dip each octopus ball into Japanese stock and
eat it with lots of chopped green onion. The takoyaki shop
underneath the basement food level in Matsuizaka Department Store in
Ueno (
) serves very good Kansai style octopus balls. The shop is
often packed with patrons during lunch hours. At four in the afternoon
when I went with my friends there the first time, every table was
occupied. A sign that says how good their takoyaki is.
PS: There are three clips of video that show the different stages of takoyaki making. Clip 1, 2, and 3
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