Saturday, June 13, 2009

Octopus Dough Balls



Cheryl and I had a late lunch at Mitsuwa today: soup with bean curd and soba noodles from Kayaba, followed by black sesame ice cream cones from one of the other stores. On the way over to the supermarket side to pick up a case of Asahi beer, we saw a rope line of customers that snaked around for about 100 feet. Curious, we walked over to see what everyone was waiting in such a long line for. Octopus dough balls, apparently, as the English-language sign at the store called them. Octopus fritters might be a better translation. Given their apparently huge popularity, I expected to find a description of these octopus fritters at Japanese Snack Reviews. No such luck, though.

The image above comes from the Chinatown Eats blog.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Japanese people love those things. I went to some suburb of tokyo that is known for their octopus balls. Everywhere I looked they were selling them. The presentation is not very appetizing. The taste isn't that great.

Mitsuwa does have good prices on the beer, tho'!

Col.Sanders said...

They really 'stick to your ribs'.

DaveinHackensack said...

Anon,

I'm not tempted to try them, but that stall was a license to print money today. Re beer prices, $11.99 for a warm 12-pack of Asahi cans -- not bad at all.

Paul,

I don't get it.

Anonymous said...

Mitsuwa in San Diego had Kirin 12 packs for $7.99. Of course, it was nearly $10 after the taxes and deposits.

Trader Joes has beer for $2.99/sixpack that is pretty good. It's a little sweet like a wheat beer, even tho' it's a 6.2% lager. If you put lemon in it tastes like hoegarten, if you put lime in it tastes like Corona.

DaveinHackensack said...

Our Trader Joe's doesn't have a liquor license. State or county law (I forget which) is pretty restrictive about grocery stores selling booze, though the new Whole Foods nearby managed to get a license.