Food Adventures in Japan: Part 3: Takoyaki!!

Takoyaki??

I had seen an episode of Andrew Zimmern where he sampled takoyaki in Japan and made a note to try it if I happened to see any. Well, the day arrived when walking in the Harajuki area I spotted a big sign, Gindaco Takoyaki. I walked over to it and saw a photo of the little balls of batter with sauce on top, however the restaurant was not open yet. Later we came back and tried some.

Was it good? Well, Andrew Zimmern didn't like it much, nor did Steve, but I fell in love with takoyaki. It was a very, very hot (temperature-wise) ball of fried batter filled with pieces of very fresh cut up octopus and red ginger, topped with savory sauce and sprinkled with katsuobushi (dried bonito) and nori (seaweed) with a little mayo, of course. I don't know why I loved it so much but I did. In fact I ordered my own takoyaki pans when I returned from Japan and successfully made some and it was fantastic. One problem is finding good octopus, which I didn't, so I substituted pork just to try making it. Next time I'll try it with shrimp until I can get some good octopus. I guess I'm not the only takoyaki fan around. I saw a Facebook fan page called "Takoyaki Addicts".

Below is a video of the Gindaco cooks making it:

The first one shows the ingredients going into the takoyaki, batter, pieces of octopus, bits of tempura batter, sakura ebi, and scallions, then more batter is poured on top.

The next video shows how the balls are formed after the batter cooks enough to start shaping it.

If you want to try making takoyaki order a special pan from Amazon.com which comes with a good recipe. Good luck!