My trip to Uwajimaya still has me thinking about Japanese food.

When I went to Japan two years ago with the Wenatchee Valley Misawa Sister City delegation I got to stay with a family that lived in the Sabishiro Beach area of Misawa in northern Japan. On one of my three days with them, they took me to Hachinohe City. It’s a large port city south of Misawa.

We did three pretty fantastic things in Hachinohe City. First they took me to a shrine, one of the most serene places I’ve been in the world, then we went on a boat ride tour of the harbor for the sole purpose of feeding gulls shrimp chips and then we went to the fish market. I was so excited to be there. We didn’t have a lot of time and I was pretty sure I would have been unable to get some of the most interesting food items past customs the next day. However, I got to ogle a $90 crab, sample garlic flavored chips, snack on dried squid pieces and, best of all, I got to try takoyaki.

We were walking by the stand with the man making the snacks and I asked what it was. Instead of trying to explain, my host family bought me a container of the piping hot octopus balls. Takoyaki is, more or less, octopus pieces suspended in a ball of savory pancake-type batter. Then, it’s topped off with condiments like bonito, mayonnaise and some sort of Japanese-style barbecue sauce. I can taste it now. We had to wait for them to cool and then, flavor explosion. My host father clearly liked them but was trying to be nice and let me eat all six of them. I shared.

Now I’ll share with you. Here’s a video by an Italian blogger I can only assume is living in Japan. My Italian is poor. Enjoy the music and try not to let it get stuck in your head.

I was also reminded of takoyaki while browsing through a Williams Sonoma catalog a month or so ago. The company was selling a Danish pancake pan that looked eerily similar to a takoyaki pan. There’s got to be some sort of connection. One day I’ll get a pan try to make them.