Here's another Japanese snack called "Pretz". It's not necessarily pretzel tasting but more like mini bread sticks. Or those crunchy toppings you can put on top of your salad! Pretz has an original flavor which is just plain biscuit...kinda like a plain pocky stick. I'd often find tomato flavored, but never takoyaki!
Now, what is takoyaki?
Tako(octopus) Yaki (grilled) [たこ焼き] is boiled octopus pieces battered into a ball accompanied with pickled ginger, tempura scraps, and green onion. The consistency is like a wet pancake, the middle doesn't really get cooked all the way so you have this gooey texture. Takoyaki is a very popular snack in Japan and particularly plentiful in Osaka. (After all, it was invented there!) It's then brushed with okonomiyaki sauce and laden with Japanese mayo. Afterwards, it's usually garnished with aonori and katsuobushi (or bonito flakes). I was really excited for this snack because I love takoyaki. I'll definitely make a future post.
Anyway, this is how it looks like when I open it:
The aroma smells very similar to okonomiyaki sauce. It's kind of ...an equivalence to BBQ sauce. It's savory but also has a sweetness to it.The strong smell surprised me a lot!
There's the naked stick. It seems to be coated with seasonings like salt and...bits of aonori! (see the green specks?) This also surprised me as it smelled very good.
So what's the verdict?...
It does have a similar taste to takoyaki don't get me wrong. However, it's very subtle and not how I expected it. I was kind of disappointed because I wanted it to taste how it smelled! The biscuit itself still had a sweetness to it, not too savory...and the sauce was really weak. A little too sweet for my taste anyway!
More or less, this Takoyaki Pretz was something very interesting and I thank my friend Kinako for sending it to me all the way from Japan!
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