By BlueZero
27 May 2011 02:08
Every one or twice a year, Mitsuwa Marketplace holds their Japanese gourmet food festival called Umaimono. It’s currently being held from today Thursday May 26th to Sunday May 29th with different Mitsuwa locations offering sometimes different food products. My sole goal was to go to the Mitsuwa in Costa Mesa and indulge in some takoyaki which can best be described as octopus gilled dumpling balls:
Background:
I had gone to Mitsuwa yesterday to feed my normal ramen hunger and I found out they were going to host their festival. Therefore I planned a careful battle strategy and got there around 5pm. The last time my friend had gone he had to wait in a 45 minute line to purchase his takoyaki. Thank goodness when I got arrived there was only one person in line and I could barely call it a wait.
Last year was the first time I sampled takoyaki at the Costa Mesa Mitsuwa and it blew me away with its flavor. The second time I had it was at Little Tokyo in Los Angeles at a vender outside an Asian mall. That one was ok but paled in comparison to the quality at Mitsuwa’s festival.
Festival Ambiance: Since Mitsuwa is a collection of a supermarket, food court, bookstore and vender stalls, the ambiance is not comparable to a sit-down restaurant.
The festival stands had people shouting out greetings and specials in Japanese which is normally not present at Mitsuwa. It was mostly deserted with only a few people walking around and sitting in the food court; I guess that is expected on a Thursday afternoon. I’m sure the place will be a mad house during the three day Memorial weekend so you will want to arrive early or late in the day to avoid long lines.
They had a person preparing it fresh but the two boxes I bought had been sitting there for probably around fifteen minutes. Each box has eight pieces and costs $6.90 + tax so with two boxes my total was $15.01. Most places in Mitsuwa only accept cash so I was lucky to have a penny in my pocket to avoid getting $ 0.99 in change.
Food: The main focus of today’s review is solely the Kukuru takoyaki from the festival stall. This takoyaki was coated with a light sauce and had fish shaving on the outside. The shavings were less crispy than I remember and were slightly soggy probably from sitting out a little while. I used the provided chopsticks to eat each piece individually. The beauty of takoyaki is you want to put the entire ball in your mouth so no delicious juice escapes. If you try and eat only half of it, you are doing it wrong and will lose precious flavor.
Another quirk I discovered about takoyaki is the hotter it is, the better it seems to taste. This means if it is burning your mouth, the takoyaki is at its best. Since my batches were still warm but not boiling, the flavor seemed slightly muted. The flavor of the sauce and the squid was still outstanding. It would have been perfection if only it were a little hotter.
After finishing the first box of eight pieces, I was starting to feel almost full but I decided to eat the other box since I assume takoyaki will not reheat well being a mix of sauce and squid. I image me stupidly sticking the squid balls into a microwave and them exploding. Box 2 was also just as delicious and the final bite left the great aftertaste in my mouth.
