Okonomiyaki Chain Store – 17 – Tako Pa!

Part 4: Osaka’s Auntie Spreads Takoyaki and Udon

Chapter 17: Takoyaki Party in the Dungeon

 

“Today we are having the first Takoyaki Grilling Party[1] in this world – let’s just  call it TakoPa for short!”

Firstly, Haruna heated up the steel plate. Then, she poured a little oil onto each indentation and spread the oil around with a brush.

Next, she poured a watery batter made of eggs, flour and other stuff into the indentations until they were almost full.

From here on, the steps would be crucial.

“Everyone, do you all know this ingredient? If you can’t deal with it, I’ll be kind and let you choose something else.”

Assistant Natalia held up a plate.

On it was some diced up octopus.

However, the adventurers had some trouble giving their answers since the octopus was presented in tiny pieces, making it difficult to discern what the creature originally looked like. They only vaguely understood that this was supposed to be edible.

“To be honest, it’s this thing.”

Natalia brought out another plate, this time with a cover over it. Haruna removed the cover with a flourish.

On the plate was a fine octopus, squidging around leisurely, waving its tentacles at its audience.

“A MONSTER!”

The crowd roared as one. As expected, a very unwelcoming reaction. Haruna and Natalia had already anticipated this negative reaction, and thus they were not too surprised when various weapons were suddenly brandished.

“Actually, this is a pretty normal cooking ingredient from where I came from. The ones on this other plate had been boiled and diced. Next, we do this…”

Plop! Plop! Pieces of the diced octopus were quickly and efficiently plopped onto the middle of the wet batter.

Finely chopped leek and benishouga were added next.

“Oi, oi… are we really going to eat monsters…?”

“I already know that Haruna-chan’s thinking is quite strange, but this is way too weird…”

“No, I don’t think that’s actually a monster, but I doubt even a demon king would eat that…”

Ignoring the negative mutterings, Haruna continued to calmly grill her Takoyaki. The Takoyaki had to be tipped with a bamboo stick until the hardened batter ‘bowl’ was halfway out, allowing the wet batter to sizzle against the indentation, forming 3/4 of the bowl, before tipping it again so that the 1/4 hole was covered until a solid sphere with a hollow centre was formed.

Finally, what had been rows of liquid batter were now rows of little balls.

There were some who would prefer a soft, squishy centre when it came to Takoyaki, but this might increase the yuck factor of the octopus for these newbies, so she went with the hollow centre Takoyaki. Moreover, as a non-expert, this type of Takoyaki was easier to make.

On top of that, Takoyaki with squishy centre would be harder to be picked up and eaten with a toothpick, and wouldn’t pair well with mayonnaise and the Okonomiyaki sweet sauce she had devised, which was a negative in her eyes. In her opinion, the hollow centre Takoyaki was closer to an actual ball which suited her sense of aesthetics.

When her audience heard her muttering about “Round is cute, na~” their focus switched from the filling over to the shape of the food. Well, round is cute, but just what kind of food is actually round?

“The first batch should be done soon, na.”

The little round balls were soon plated.

“Next, we’ll add the sauce~”

Though adding katsuobushi [2] would level up the flavour, she had none at the moment. Furthermore, considering the way those fish shavings wave and dance on food, that might actually put off her customers even more. The same goes for green nori sprinkles[3], the adventurers might think she was adding mold or something, so it was probably a good idea to not include that for now.

“—- Takoyaki is done! It’s time to eat!”

Despite her enthusiastic ‘Go ahead~!’, the adventurers remained doubtful and hesitant. No matter what, if you knew they were monster bits, you would be reluctant too, right?

The normally cheerful and robust adventurers all exchanged looks with each other, wondering who will be the first to come forward.

“Is there no one~? But it’s really delicious, na…”

Suddenly, Haruna popped one of the balls into her mouth.

“Un, hot, hot, ah, but it’s delicious… Yes, I still got it, it’s made really well!”

Seeing the look of bliss on her face, the adventurers knew at once that she was not pretending.

“‘A monster eating lady’… as expected of Haruna!”

“Could it be that monsters are actually delicious?”

“I already told you, it’s not a monster! Even high class monsters or demons don’t get to eat these!”

In this world, beings who drop monster stones were split into two types. Creatures with lower intelligence levels were called monsters, while creatures with intelligence levels similar to that of a human were called demons.

Although the regular customers did not demonstrate complete refusal against this, there was nevertheless still some resistance against the idea of eating such an unorthodox-looking creature. Since Haruna was the very personification of unorthodoxy, her finding ‘monsters’ delicious was really kind of  a ‘Haruna thing’, not exactly a brimming endorsement. What they really needed was to see someone normal. Someone at their level, to eat this abnormal ingredient.

Then, from the side, Natalia sighed heavily, “Haa…”

“Very well, I shall do it… I am, after all, a staff member…”

In order to prove that there was no poison, Natalia decided that the fastest way was to eat this mysterious food herself.

“Uwooh!”

“Such courage!”

“To think Haruna brought a sacrificial victim!”

Those were the general responses from the adventurers.

Natalia nervously picked up one of the Takoyaki with the tips of her fingers and popped the whole thing into her mouth.

“Hafu… ho- hot…”

“Ah, that’s because it’s freshly made. Well, it’ll be fine once you’ve rolled it around your mouth a little, it’ll cool down on its own, wa.”

After a while, Natalia started to earnestly chew the Takoyaki — and swallowed with an audible gulp.

“How was it?”

Haruna, as well as the rest of the staff and customers were all staring at Natalia.

Complete silence reigned over the thirteenth floor.

After a while, Natalia silently picked up another Takoyaki, and put it into her mouth.

An unexpected development!

“Ish ashuary wirry dewishoush (It’s actually really delicious)!”

Suddenly, the winds of opinion changed. So what if it’s a strange ingredient? The most important thing was its deliciousness.

“How could an adventurer be afraid of monsters?!”

“That’s right! It’s not like it’s going to ruin my mouth!”

Everyone was soon shoving forward feverishly to stuff the Takoyaki into their mouths.

Although the Takoyaki balls burned the insides of their mouth, the adventurers were practically daring each other to eat it piping hot. Perhaps, that boldness was what made Takoyaki taste even better.

 

Then, after some time–

 

“The inside is almost syrupy!”

“Though it’s made from the same batter as Okonomiyaki, this has a completely different taste!”

“This octopus thing is really chewy, a really fun texture!”

“The benishouga really accentuates the taste and stimulates the appetite! Demons would surely love to eat these!”

The Takoyaki has been praised to high heavens!

“That’s great~ I was really worried that no one would actually try it, wa.”

Haruna pressed a hand over her chest as she sighed in relief.

Plenty of westerners who could not handle octopus still enjoyed Takoyaki in her previous world, possibly because the meat had been cut to pieces, which made it easier to be accepted.

“Ah, for those who really do not want to eat octopus, we also offer sausage or ham fillings, so that you can at least try them without the octopus. Cheese is also a great filling, wa.”

In Osaka, it’s perfectly fine to put all kinds of stuff into the ‘yaki’ at a Takoyaki Party in order to change up the taste. The normal options are ham and cheese, of course. For the more avant-garde type, they would even put things like chocolate into their Takoyaki.

Though there were plenty of people who liked the traditional octopus Takoyaki, there were very few who would dislike ham and cheese fillings–

“Cheese is also great!”

“Ham matches this new recipe really well!”

Thus, in that way, [Haru-chan’s] latest new product ‘Takoyaki’ was introduced.

 

 

[1] TakoPa – Takoyaki parties actually exist!

https://zenpop.jp/en/blog/post/176/takoyaki-party

Note: Aside from chocolate, you can also put blueberries in your ‘yaki’, basically anything that will go with pancakes!

[2] Katsuobushi

Smoked and fermented skipped jack tuna

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katsuobushi

[3] Green Nori Sprinkles

Green Nori is made from a different kind of seaweed compared to ‘regular’ black nori seaweed