Naniwaya Taiyaki: Wandering aimlessly around the Roppongi Hill neighborhood of Japan, I stumbled upon a small sweets shop with a sizable line and a pleasantly sweet aroma. The man in the front asked if I had a reservation – I replied that I did not and he asked me to kindly sit in a designated waiting area while their speciality taiyaki, a fish-shaped Japanese pastry filled with red bean, was made to order. After just a few minutes, and passing over 180¥ in coin (about $1.65 in USD), I was handed a taiyaki with fresh grill marks, still steaming hot. While I bit into it, several things clicked into place: 1. the taiyaki I've had previously were more like waffles, with a thick and chewy outer casing; this one was crisp and extremely thin, which I now understand to be the texture that many Japanese frozen taiyaki ice cream desserts attempt but fail to emulate. 2. the red bean filling, which I have since learned takes 8 hours to make, was barely sweetened – I realize now that the extremely sugary bean paste often used in American versions are likely due to the filling coming straight from a can, rather than being made from scratch. I really enjoyed eating it, and upon coming back to my apartment, found from looking up the establishment that this very shop was the original creator of taiyaki over 100 years ago, in 1909. What a lucky surprise! 4.0/5.0

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