Otafuku Review: Otafuku
Do you ever eat something and then realize it is pretty good, but wish you would like it more? That is kind of how I felt with the food from Otafuku. It was like, this tasted pretty good, but it did not blow my mind… and I walk by this all the time, it is cheap, if it blew my mind, I would be able to eat this all the time! In case you are not familiar with this little hole-in-the-wall, they serve two main things: takoyaki and okonomiyaki. Yea, those Japaneese translations do not mean anything to me either. Basically the former is a fried batter with octopus and the latter is something like a savory pancake.
You can buy the takoyaki balls separate from the okonomiyaki pancake but why do that? You cannot possibly eat all of that. They also have fried soba noodles here, but I opted for the more exotic things that I could not pronounce. Side note – do you like doing that too? When you are at a restaurant, do you avoid things like chicken, and instead go for that weird thing on the menu that you would never make at home? I do! Ok back to the food… I got ‘combo B’ which means okonomiyaki and takoyaki together. Just think of it like a marriage between Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt – beautiful and beautiful. Except instead of beautiful, it is round fried deliciousness and flat pancakey deliciousness. You also have to tell me what you want inside the takoyaki balls and I picked octopus because that sounded better than cheese.
For both items, they put this soy based sauce on top, some mayo (but they ask before putting that on there), and bonito flakes. On to the taste… a takoyaki is really soft. You figure that if it is fried, it would have texture… but it really does not have any texture other than soft. The bits of octopus offered some texture but for the most part it was just one-dimensional in terms of texture. It is really difficult to compare this to anything else out there, or why I kept eating it… but these things have a unique taste of their own. And like I said earlier, it is good, but not exceptional.
The okonomiyaki kind of falls into the same category as the takoyaki, except this is round and flat. They did a great job of creating a crisp outer exterior on the pancake and it was good texturally. (I like texture contrast in my food…) I had the pork version of okonomiyaki but I could not discern any porky attributes to the pancake. Either way, it was still fun to eat.
If you go, I recommend getting the combo to try out both. And bring a friend because it is a lot of carbs and it fills you up really fast (in a good way.)
Seeing as this is my first year blogging, I wonder if it will be more difficult to blog in the summer. I figure that the weather will be nice and I will want to just enjoy the weather and not take pictures of my food. Oh what am I talking about, of course I want to take pictures of my food. What do y’all like to do in the summer? Any favorite summer-time foods?
Otafuku236 E. 9th St.New York, NY 10003212-353-8503
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