There certainly are some rare and interesting foods to discover in Japan, once you dig beneath the surface a little. One interesting taste I was unaware of before coming here was okonomiyaki (oh-koh-no-mee YAH-kii, meaning “grilled whatever-you-like”), essentially a pancake of batter mixed with a variety of ingredients including cabbage, pork, seafood and so on, which is cooked on a grill then covered with mayonnaise and that heavenly sauce the Japanese call “sauce” then eaten like a pizza. Then there’s taiyaki, a traditional Japanese snack that can be thought of as a pancake cooked in a fish-shaped mold with tasty beans inside. Perhaps the most mysterious Japanese food of all is takoyaki, the “octopus balls” which are essentially balls of batter containing a single piece of octopus meat (tako). A famous food from the Kansai area, I still have fond memories of lining up in the cold to buy the “soul food of Osaka” at a famous takoyaki stand called Otakoya in the Dotonbori region (near the Glico Man sign). Of course, you can sample Japan’s most unique foods without even getting a passport, thanks to the traditional Japanese Food Drops that we sell on the site, and you can even make your own octopus balls thanks to the takoyaki cooker we got in stock today.
Takoyaki is just one of the many enjoyable foods in Japan. Will you try it?
