A taiyaki is a fish-shaped Japanese cake.
Traditionally it is sold at small shops or street stalls to be eaten just after it is baked. Usually azuki bean paste is wrapped with pancake-like dough baked on an iron plate.
The azuki bean paste is made of azuki beans, water and sugar, and contains high protein and fivers. Recently a variety of taiyaki has appeared, such as the one with custard filling , matcha custard, chocolate and cream cheese filling.
When I was a child taiyaki shops were in any and every town and every Japanese loved taiyaki. We used to eat it after school, at tea time, at night; alone, with friends, with family and relatives, with the coworkers and so on.
Eventually the taiyaki was replaced by western sweets and many shops have disappeared. When I want to eat the taiyaki now, I have to search for a shop on the internet and take a train to get one. It is no longer easy to get it.
Besides the taiyaki, we have similar sweets of different shape. They are called imagawa-yaki, oban-yaki, or kaiten-yaki depending on the region or shops. You can’t distinguish the taste between taiyaki and imagawa-yaki, while the mouth feel varies a little.
