Takoyaki Museum?????

When I found out we were going to Universal Studios in Osaka, I knew I HAD to go to the Takoyaki Museum this time. I have been to Universal Studios once before and I have been to Universal City Walk a couple of times, but I was never able to go to the Takoyaki Museum. This time I was going!

I only knew about the Takoyaki Museum because I saw the sign for it the first time I went to Universal Studios. I had no idea what it was, but I imagined it to be this really cool place with the history of the Takoyaki and maybe some Takoyaki diplays. Or maybe some photos of famous people eating Takoyaki at their favorite Takoyaki place. And then a little Takoyaki gift shop to top it all off!

Well, before I left for Osaka I did a little research and ......ummm...it's only kind of a museum. It's an area where there are about 5 or 6 Takoyaki stands. I was a little disappointed....just a little. I was still going to eat some different Takoyaki!!

Okay. Some of you might be asking yourself, "what in the world is Takoyaki??"
"Tako" means octopus....and "yaki" means fried or cooked. Takoyaki is a doughy ball with a chunk of octopus in the middle. Once it is cooked, sauce is drizzled on it. Some other toppings include, mayonnaise and bonito flakes and seaweed flakes. I like it all!!

So, we get to our hotel (which was fantastic!) by Universal City walk and by the time we got all settled in, it was just too late to go. So we hopped on a train and went exploring instead! I love exploring!! Our plan was to spend the next day in Universal Studios. We spent about four hours in the park (it was a little busy) and then decided to take a break and come back. I grabbed my big camera and we headed over to the Takoyaki Museum. I was starving so this was PERFECT!!

This was the first thing I saw when we found it. It's on the second floor of the Universal City Walk.

We went in and walked around. It's not very big. There are about 5 or 6 little Takoyaki restaurants inside. We decided to walk by all of them and check them all out before we picked one to try out. The very last one we stopped by looked very interesting. The Takoyaki looked crunchy. Hmmm.....and on the menu they had some that were just "salted" and some that had the traditional sauce on them. I think we found our first spot to try! We ordered the "half and half" which was just half salted and half with sauce.

It wasn't very long before they brought this to us.....I couldn't wait to dig in!

It was hard to say which ones were my favorite. I really liked the "salted" ones. I've never had them like that before. I've always had the traditional sauce and bonito flakes and seaweed......and sometimes mayonnaise. I really liked the crunchy texture of the Takoyaki at this place. They also got a thumbs up from Jason! He doesn't mind Takoyaki, but they are not his favorite so that is saying a lot.

After we finished up, we walked around and looked at the other shops. I really believe that if there is a line at a restaurant, that is usually a good sign that the food is yummy. So, we picked the one with the longest line. As we were standing in line, I glanced up and I saw a sign that said "moch and cheese" (in Japanese of course).

What?!?! Mochi and cheese takoyaki?!?! REALLY???? Jason had gone to get an English menu from them, but I already knew what I wanted. I wanted that mochi and cheese takoyaki. In case you were wondering, mochi is just pounded rice. It's so good. I am a big fan of mochi and I am a big fan of cheese. We decided on a sampler plate. It had three different types of takoyaki (of course the mochi and cheese takoyaki was one of them). We bought our ticket from the vending machine and handed it to the nice man behind the counter.

While we waited, we watched them make the takoyaki.

A few minutes later, we were walking to a table with our takoyaki.

I have to say the mochi cheese takoyaki was A-mazing! It also came with a takoyaki that you dipped in the soup. That was pretty tasty too.

This is the place that served the mochi cheese takoyaki!

If you want to try takoyaki, there are a couple of places in Iwakuni that sell takoyaki. Shirokiya (I did a blog post about this wonderful izakaya) serves some good takoyaki. There is also a place at YouMe Town that serves takoyaki. It's right outside of Lotteria.

Now that I've had takoyaki in Osaka though......I fear I am now a takoyaki snob! *sigh* I guess that means I need to find a great takoyaki place here in Iwakuni!

Have you tried takoyaki? What did you think?

2011 Hiroshima Food Festival

The weather was really blah, but I didn't care. It was the final day for the Hiroshima Food Festival. I wasn't about to let a little bit of rain stop me from enjoying some great eats!

Headed to the train station, met up with some friends, and then headed to Hiroshima. An hour later we were there and couldn't wait to get to the castle grounds area. Hmmm...it was raining a little harder than I had hoped, but I had an umbrella. Besides, it's just a little water. Right? It wasn't like I was going to melt or anything. We got off the tram and started walking towards the park. Once we got there I was overwhelmed by all of the food tents set up on the castle side. Where to begin?? We went to the left and I immeditely saw a sign that said, "soba." I kind of glanced at the other tents as I walked as fast as I could to the soba tent. Now, let me tell you, it was not an easy trek. There were a lot of people and most of them were carrying umbrellas so it took some maneuvering, but I made it. It was really cool because you could watch them make the noodles by hand. I would have taken a picture, but ummmm.....it was raining. I paid my 500yen and they handed me a hot bowl of soba. Mmmmm......I walked off to the side to get out of everyone's way and then I stood there. I looked down at my waribashi (wooden chopsticks) lying across my soba bowl and wondered how in the world I was going to break them apart so I could eat my noodles. My umbrella was not cooperating. When I tried to hold it with my head and shoulder it just fell backwards. So, I closed it and then I had to find some place to set down my bowl so I could pull apart my chopsticks. It was raining pretty hard at this point, but I didn't care. I wanted to eat my noodles! And I did. In the pouring rain. With no umbrella. Oh, it was good. It was also hot. Once I finished my soba and threw my bowl away, I opened my umbrella up again and decided that from that point on I could only purchase food items that only required one hand to carry and didn't need utensils to consume. I was wet and cold, and the rain didn't show any signs of letting up. I didn't care though! I was at a FOOD FESTIVAL! Those two words should always be together! Okay, maybe I was re-thinking this decision a little bit. I was wet and cold and having a hard time holding my umbrella while eating. Then, we started walking and I looked over to the left. The park across the street was FULL of white food tents. It's a pretty big park too. All doubts left my brain as soon as I saw that park. All I could think about was the amount of food we were going to find over there.

We followed the crowd and crossed the street. Wow. I was amazed at how crowded it was. I thought the rain would keep people away, and it probably did keep some away, but a lot of people still came out to enjoy the Food Festival. A lot! We got to the entrance and we all stopped.

It was like a huge mud pit in there.

What a dilemma. It smelled so good though. It's just mud. Dirt and water. Mixed together. What kind of a foodie am I if I let a little mud get in the way of some amazing food? Then, someone saw a green carpet-like thing on the ground. We could walk on that! So, we started walking on the green carpet and it didn't take long for us to find an interesting food tent. There was a huge piece of meat (like, half of a cow or something) hanging and there were some huge steaks on a grill next to it. They were selling cut up steak for 500yen per serving. We lined up and bought us some Hiroshima steak. I took one piece and ...wow! It was so tender and so good!

We saw a couple of these steak tents selling local beef.

We saw a Turkish Kebab food tent too. And not only did they have kebabs.......they had stretchy ice cream!! That's what the sign said in Japanese.....well, it sounds a little different in Japanese I guess. I tried to get a picture of the guy dishing up the ice cream, but there were people standing in front of him each time and I was trying to hold my umbrella and take a picture at the same time. This was the best I could do -

Yeah......it's just the kebab tent.

Finally, we came to the end of the mud pit and saw a grassy area with more food tents. It was like food heaven! As we made our way over, I saw a group of Japanese people square dancing. How awesome is that?! They were dancing in the rain.

Not the best picture ever of the square dancers, but it's all I got.

Then we saw an Indonesian food tent with some very friendly people and some yummy looking satay chicken that I had to try. There was a wonderful peanut sauce all over it. Mmmm....

At this point we decided we were done. I wanted a nice, hot cup of tea and I wanted to drink it sitting down......somewhere dry. We headed back towards the mud pit. On the way there, we stumbled onto this little fishing area set up for the children.

Very cool! I wanted to fish! But that cup of tea was calling my name.

Despite all of the rain and the mud and the cold, I had a really good time at the Food Festival. If you missed out on the it this year, there's always next year. I know I'll be there! I just hope the weather is better.

G.Labo

I have to warn you that the quality of pictures and number of pictures for this post are not so great. It was raining too hard on Friday night for me to lug my Nikon around so I took all of the pictures with my phone. And I kind of forgot to take a picture of the outside of the restaurant. Did I mention that it was raining REALLY hard that night?

While I love spending an evening out with my co-workers, I don't like it when it's to farewell one of them. So it was with mixed feelings that I went to dinner Friday night. As always, we had a great time and there was lots of laughing going on. G.Labo is one of my favorite restaurants for parties. I called and made reservations for our group and pre-ordered a set dinner course. It was 2,800yen per person for the meal and then some people opted to do the all-you-can-drink for 2 hours so they paid an additional 2,000yen. I didn't take pictures of the drinks, but I did get some shots of all of the wonderful food that we consumed.

First, they brought out this dish.

It was salmon on top of potatoes and it had some type of sauce mixed into it. They drizzled pesto around the plate and served it with some little pieces of crusty bread. I thought it was so yummy that I had three helpings of it!

Then they brought out the garlic bread......their garlic bread is really amazing.....I could just sit and eat the bread all night. Seriously.

When they told me they were bringing this out, I almost jumped out of my seat (maybe I did ... a little) with excitement.

FONDUE!!!!

For those of you looking at this and thinking, "Is that pumpkin there on the left?" Why, yes. It is! Chunks of heavenly pumpkin that we dipped in the this creamy, amazing cheese that was still bubbling like crazy when they brought it out to us. Ohhhh.......I'm going to start drooling all over my Macbook. That pumpkin.....and that cheese.....mmmm.......Alright, moving on.

Oh. I'm sorry. Did I just add another picture of the amazing fondue? Can you see how it's still bubbling? Okay. I'm really moving on now. I promise.

The next dish they brought out was this wonderful mushroom salad.

The mushrooms were delicious and the dressing was really good too. It had a little bit of an orange flavor to it.....a very slight taste.

Then, it was time for some steak. Typically, they serve their steak medium. I didn't think about it when I made reservations and pre-ordered for our group, but I definitely could have asked them to cook them medium-well or whatever our group wanted.

The steak was pretty tasty, but I wish they would have cut them into smaller pieces, or given us steak knives. The pieces were really big and I couldn't just bite a piece off. Now, how sexy is that image of me biting off a big chunk of steak? So glad I wasn't on a first date.

It was finally time for some pasta. At this point, I am feeling kind of full and I'm not sure if I can continue with this food mission.

What? There's mushrooms in the pasta? Well, okay.....I guess I can eat a little bit more. This pasta was pretty light and yummy. It was just tossed in oil and seasonings. Now I REALLY thought I was done.


But....then they brought this out. Oh my gosh. Shrimp in a creamy tomato sauce?? Why, sure! I can still fit some more food in my tummy.

This pasta was a little on the heavy side (must be the cream sauce), but it was good.

Our dinner also came with a choice of coffee or tea, and you they serve it hot or cold so you can choose. I got the hot tea and it was a perfect ending to a yummy dinner. But then they brought out the dessert. They brought out a platter of desserts for each table so we could choose what we wanted.

This wonderful pumpkin goodness was kind of like a pumpkin cheesecake in a cup, with a heavy pumpkin flavor. It was very creamy and very yummy. Unfortunately, I am trying to cut white sugar out of my diet completely (I know....it's okay....you can call me crazy) so I just had a very small bite. It's pumpkin and I HAD to taste it.

The chocolate cake looked very dense and very rich. Not sure if it was a big favorite at our table.

This white chocolate raspberry cheesecake was definitely a hit though. It looked really good and sounded really good. And it even came with a small scoop of ice cream on top.

I felt like we definitely got a lot of great food for our money. They do have a regular menu that you can order from. You definitely do not have to order a dinner set.

Definitely a great place for a group outing, or a date night, or even lunch. They are open for lunch and they offer some decent lunch sets. They are closed on Tuesdays so keep that in mind when you plan your lunch or dinner date. For reservations, please call (0827) 21-7916. They do get booked up pretty quickly in the evenings so even if it's for a small group, I recommend that you make reservations.

To get to this lovely little restaurant, go out Main Gate. At the intersection after the railroad tracks (Four Corners), turn right and head downtown towards the train station. At the rotary (the big round-a-bout in front of the train station), turn left. At the first light, turn left and then make the first right. Park in the pay lot on your left (or any of the lots right there). You should see a covered shopping area if you stand with your back to the main road. Go into the covered arcade and go to your right. Walk for a few minutes and you should see G.Labo on your left. It is the last restaurant on your left before you leave the covered arcade (some people call the covered arcade the "Yellow Brick Road").

Enjoy and please let me know what you think!