Cooking: Takoyaki Recipe

I finally admit after eating 18 takoyaki(sakeyaki since it was salmon) for lunch I'm starting to get a bit sick of them. I've found the recipes online have been pretty good. But this is the one I use for my takoyaki machine(makes 18).
It's as simple as 1,2,3. 1 egg, 200ml of plain flour (i actually use around 180ml plain flour and 1 tbs self raising to make them puff more), 300ml of dashi (1 tsp instant dashi ganules made up to 300ml).  Add a pinch of salt. You should end up with about 2 cups of batter.
For the filling I put in whatever I can find.I know that's not authentic but who can be bothered making tempura bits. I still haven't made or bought takoyaki sauce and have been using hoisin sauce instead, it's quite different but better than just plain mayo. I think I might give takoyaki a break now.

Cooking: Takoyaki Pt 2

Finally got round to making takoyaki again. Took me about an hour from start to finish to make. Including chopping ingredients, making the batter, cooking and presenting. Once again it wasn't really takoyaki since I didn't use octopus and used a can of smoked oysters instead. Smoked oysters are seriously underrated. I admit I used to hate them, I'm not sure why because I've loved oysters all my life but something about smoked ones were just weird. But now I love them, the texture is so different and the smokiness adds another dimension.

They actually look like takoyaki now. Yes I admit I cheat. I mixed in a little self raising flour so they would puff up and fill in the mould and I also kept adding the batter in after turning them to make them round. But no one knows. Also realised you have to turn the machine on and off throughout the process to allow enough time to put ingredients in and turn them before they fully cook through.

End result. Still missing the takoyaki sauce, haven't been bothered to make some or buy some yet. Recipe will be posted soon.

Cooking: Takoyaki

Last week I got a dutch pancake/takoyaki machine for my birthday. I've made about 4 or 5 batches of takoyaki since and it's a lot harder than it may seem. I still haven't found a perfect recipe and timing is so crucial. I keep overcooking them so they end up as half spheres instead of little balls. Unfortunately my family doesn't feel like eating any more takoyaki. However since it's holidays, I can make takoyaki for lunch and just eat them all and no one will complain.

First batch of takoyaki I've ever made.

  (used smoked salmon instead of octopus)

Used the machine for it's dutch pancake purposes, but filled it up too much they kept rising and burnt.

Will post a recipe after I've perfected them. 

Need to find a sauce recipe. Anyone know of one?

Update: TAKOYAKI machines in AUSTRALIA

A bit behind in blogging due to the crazy amount of school work being crammed in before the end of the term. Only 3 weeks of high school left 0.0
Yesterday I had a very very special experience and I must thank my friend Mat for everything. Owe him one big time now. Not supposed to talk about it so I'll just give you a hint, don't ask me anything though.

When I thought my day couldn't get any better, I came home to this

My brother has been looking far and wide for a takoyaki machine for my birthday. I saw pretty much the exact same one at ALDI a month or so back AND though to myself, "I wonder whether I could make takoyaki out of that" only to find out later when bro was looking them up online that it was actually a takoyaki machine except sold as a "Dutch Pancake Maker". AND IT WAS ONLY $15!!!!! So bro found out the company that makes the machines sells them at other places other than ALDI and he went looking at ALDI and BIGW stores trying to find one but there were none left. The company said they only import so many each year or something along the lines of that. So he went looking for dutch pancake makers in general and supposedly target had the ones he was looking for. He went to many stores (like every aldi, big w and target store in the city) and he finally found one!!! AT OUR LOCAL SHOPPING CENTRE!!! a minutes drive away from our place =.=" $30 at target.
So how do I know its a takoyaki machine?

Can you see the octopus down the bottom? Suggests that it has something to do with takoyaki. BUT the octopus is actually holding a TAKOYAKI therefore I conclude that it is a takoyaki machine =] Can't wait to try it out, except I'm super busy with work unfortunately.
I'm a tad takoyaki obsessed as seen here. Only eaten it a few times in my life, and none of them were in japan. First recall trying them at Samurai Burger at Box Hill, then in Taiwan in the night markets (cheapest I've had, like AUD$1.20 for 6, then in HK twice in a day, then at Yuki jap restaurant in Malvern on my birthday. Best being Gindaco in HK and Yuki here.

Eating Out: Yuki Japanese Restaurant 1901-1903 Malvern Road, Malvern East 3145

It was my 18th birthday a couple of days ago and I wanted to eat Japanese because it's my favourite cuisine. I believe that it is the best cuisine not just because of taste but for skill, refinement, respect for food and culture. But I better not start an argument here, everyone is entitled to their opinions. Friend went here and kept raving about their takoyaki (he loves his takoyaki) except when I asked him about the food here he couldn't remember anything about it (not a good sign). This place has been placing ads in the chinese newspaper for quite some time and they have a birthday special. If you go on the day of your birthday and you have more than 4 adults then the birthday person gets to eat for half price, and if you have more than 6 adults then the birthday person eats for free. Enticing yeah? And if you book 24 hours in advance, you get free oysters (max 6 per person, you have to tell them how many you want) I think I forgot the phrase, "some things are too good to be true", now you know where this is going.

So you can come in and order a la carte or go for the buffet for $27.50 for week nights or $30 for weekends I believe. 

When I first walked in it felt like a cosy motel/lodge feel. Got given a menu and you can pretty much order anything from the menu except for specific sushi rolls...

*warning-half the menu will be described during this post

Tempura Prawns (6)

Relatively large, well battered and crunchy prawns. Not too oily. However prawn quality was a little disappointing. Also the prawn didn't really fit into the dipping sauce bowl (but that can't be helped). Good start to the meal. However the tempura prawns at Surf and Turf were a lot better but that was 2 years ago

Oysters

I love seafood, raw oysters especially. This tray contains 30 oysters for the 5 of us. Very fresh and creamy. No complaints, just a big smile on my face.

Unagi

Ohhhhhh, I didn't realise how much I missed unagi until I took a bite. The unique taste with the fatty skin and sweet sauce is sooooo delicious. However I do believe this comes in a vacuum sealed package and requires little effort except heating up to make. Craving Unagidon now, must get it whenever I get a chance to.

Seaweed Salad

I also believe that this comes pre made and highly doubt it was made in house as it was so green that the sesame seeds turned green. Very crunchy and refreshing, it was gone in no time.

Takoyaki (6)

On first impressions I was a little disappointed, there appeared to be very little takoyaki sauce and no bonito flakes. However after biting into them I was pleasantly surprised, a fluffy ping pong sized ball with more than one octopus piece in it =] My friend was right. Later on we ordered another plate and it was even better than before. Crispy outside, piping hot on the inside and there were tonnes of octupus pieces inside. Best takoyaki I've had in Melbourne, or possibly ever.

Gyoza (6)

Most interesting looking gyoza's I've ever seen, not the usual gyoza or dumpling shape. It was obviously steamed then deep fried or perhaps just deep fried and on the verge of being burnt. The wrapper was very crunchy and the filling was very average.

Wrapped Prawns? (6)

This was a chef special that was not on the menu. Prawns wrapped in spring roll pastry and drizzled with an interesting sauce. Nothing special about it although I felt like it belonged at Yum Cha not at a japanese restaurant, but I could be wrong.

Mussels in Cream Sauce

This isn't on the menu either and is another chef special, however it is on the take away menu. The take away menu seems to offer more than the dine in menu, which is pretty weird. The mussels were medicore but the sauce was quite nice. Creamy onion sauce that had something else but I couldn't figure out what is was, could eat a tonne of these. Maybe it's because I love mussels. Ordered it again later and it wasn't as good as before. The sauce became liquidy...

Sashimi and Sushi Combo platter with Soft Shell Crab handroll.

This was one of the first things we ordered and it took about an hour to come out. Contained salmon sashimi which was alright, not top notch but decent. Only one piece of kingfish (I believe it was kingfish) came with the platter and existed as a nigiri. How do you share one piece of kingfish with 5 people?? The soft shell crab roll was quite good. The batter still crunchy, you could taste the crab. However it fell apart very easily as there was not much rice to hold it together.

Agedashi Tofu (6)

someone ate some already

Since the tofu piece were so small and the sauce almost covered it there was very little if any crunchy parts. However overall it was very good, no complaints.

Seafood Okonomiyaki

 Very battered filled okonomiyaki. Found only traceable amounts of cabbage. Seafood was frozen marinara mix. All together it wasn't too bad, didn't come cut up though so it was a tad hard to eat. It was a pretty good chewy pancake.

Sashimi

According to the menu this should contain salmon and kingfish, however the latter was not present. The salmon was good, crunchy and no sinewy bits. However it looked like the sashimi chef was getting a tad lazy or maybe it was intentional that some slices where very thin and some very thick. Not that it mattered, still sashimi.

Miso Soup

Most disappointing dish of the night. Yes that is how much soup we were given. It was cold and extremely salty. I'm pretty sure it would have been fine if we ordered this earlier in the night when they were actually making it, not at the end of the night when they were just about to close.

Black Sesame Ice Cream

I didn't try this one as I ordered the green tea one. Aunty could only taste vanilla, black sesame pretty much didn't exist except in sight. 

Green Tea Ice Cream

Little scoop of ice cream. Also experienced pure vanilla flavour from green ice cream. The waitress said that the chef personally makes the ice cream....*cough cough* does it require a chef to go down to safeway to buy a tub of ice cream to mix with matcha powder? At least don't be stingy with the green tea powder because you're wasting it since you can't even taste it. 

Food: 6/10 Although there was nothing bad about the food, the quality of ingredients was just disappointing. Also the money saving shortcuts taken made a definite impact. Japanese food should be better because it's all about fresh good quality ingredients and no shortcuts. 

Service: 5/10 A waiter and a waitress did all the work. However the waiter was new and literally had no idea how to many things. He didn't put our order through many times. He didn't know what some of the things on the menu were. At least train him before he starts work, or get him to learn the menu. The waitress was definitely more experienced and quite good at bs-ing her way through stuff. She was very friendly but when she got to excuses, she went round in circles. Asked whether I could have another bowl of ice cream and her answer was "sorry no, we only make enough of each for the night" I'm pretty damn sure you don't make the ice cream everyday and you don't know how many people come in every night AND you can't know how much of each flavour you will need each night because you're giving people a choice. Even the "but she's the birthday girl" trick didn't work. Sorry, tried to refrain from complaining throughout post. 

Environment: 7/10 Very shabby. Seats sank in amazingly. Disposable chopsticks. Flickering light was beyond annoying. A bored and slow sushi chef on display was not pleasing to see. 

Verdict? A lot of work and improvement must go in. I'm not sure whether they have many second time round customers. Because I probably won't be one unless it's a birthday dinner or something special. I can't say whether the $27.50 was worth it or not. In my opinion I'd rather go Surf and Turf if that place still exists.


Photos taken with my new camera which Dad gave me about an hour before we went out for dinner. Still getting used to it. Pretty happy with the pictures since I had no tripod and it was quite low light. Shutter speeds of around 1/8sec-1/15sec were used with no flash.

A day in Mongkok :)

 Finally kinda have the time to post bout 2 days ago. Went to Mongkok with Wezblob, Wezblob's bro and my bro. Only for a couple of hours but we managed to eat quite a few things on the things to eat list and shop around the touristy places in Mongkok.
Day started at noon, unfortunately in Mongkok barely any shops are open at noon which we found out. Our first planned destination was Japan Boat for takoyaki but they were only starting to open and not making takoyaki yet so we detoured and went shoe shopping on Fa Yuen St (otherwise known as sneaker street). Couldn't find the shoe I wanted in my size. Managed to find a badminton shop to look at some prices for things before accidentally walking into Gindaco (another takoyaki store) and it was fully open.
Bought 10 pieces/balls? of takoyaki (5 were octopus, 5 were prawn). $38 (AUD$5.50) cheaper than Melb.

Taste? Crunchy on the outside, soft but a little too hollow on the inside. Nice big pieces of octopus/whole prawn. Good mayo and takoyaki sauce. 7.5/10

After Gindaco we went to Rose Sporting Goods or something like that. Specialised badminton shop, really wanted a little keyring but way too expensive. After looking at more shoes we ended back at Japan Boat for a second round of takoyaki. This time at $15 for 6....way cheaper than Gindaco but you get what you pay for.

The guy at Japan Boat looked no where near as pro as the guy at Gindaco. Japan Boat takoyaki wasn't as crunchy but it was BURNING HOT, and the piece of octopus wasn't as big. The mayo looked like plastic and the takoyaki sauce was unusually sweet.

Then we went to ParknShop (supermarket) to buy "ice cream wrapped in glutinous rice wrapper" and decided to look for Hot and Spicy Pringles, failed to find them but found these instead :)

Tasted like wasabi flavoured chips...nothing special except for the price...$9.00....burning a hole in my pocket. Back to the ice cream thingos

PURE HEAVEN. The pastry is 2mm or so thick, just like tang yuan if you know what that is, its chewy and tasteless. Then there's a massive ball of ice cream inside, I chose vanilla. At $9.50 a two packs (one pack contains 2) it's pretty good value. One the pack it says Mochi Ice so maybe that's what they're called.



After walking to Langham Place we bumped into a place that sold the all mighty Egg Shaped Waffle thing 鸡蛋仔. No  idea what it is called in English. Been craving it for ages, but honestly I actually ate this last week.

Freshly made :) on nom nom
It's crunchy on the outside, soft and fluffy on the inside. Tastes like a waffle just airier. You rip off the little balls and EAT IT.
ANOTHER MUST EAT!!




The afternoon soon ended with a McFlurry which was half melted for some reason and a trip to Muji where I got told off for eating in the store though I could NOT find a no eating sign anywhere.

One last thing. ANOTHER MUST EAT!! Had dinner with family and ate SUCKLING PIG *drools* This stuff is amazing, 10 times better than Chinese Roast Pork.

Yes that is a roasted pigs head on the dish, with cherries as eyes. You bite into a wafer thin skin that is crispier than ever, and then into a layer of fat which just melts and possibly into a tiny bit of meat. TO DIE FOR!!!....I think if you ate this pretty often you would die....so much fat

All in all, a day of must eats.