You may have noticed a particular penchant in some of my posts - a penchant for the sweeter things in life. Not that I am a big cake eater. But give me a cute little macaron, a delicate pastry, a luscious truffle, some choux filled with custard, or a sweet yeasty dough, and I’m in heaven. Therefore it should come as no surprise that these imagawayaki hit my sweet spot.

Traditionally these festival treats are filled with red bean azuki paste, but we also found ones pumped full of custard, green tea flavoured bean paste, yam/taro and even a chocolate custard version.

The sweet batter is poured into a heated cast cast iron mould, and when the bottoms are browned, the filling is placed on one side and the other side is flipped over on top. It is left to finish cooking and heat through.

As you can see, the imagawayaki are a delicious and filling snack, and certainly not shy on the red bean paste (mmm). As a side note, imagawayaki also go by many different regional names such as obanyaki and taikoyaki, and these days even come in savoury versions (eww).

Another variation is the taiyaki, or sea bream fish shaped cake. Same batter, same filling. And yes, I ate this one too. Just to make sure.

There is much discussion about the origin of taiyaki, but they have apparently been made at Naniwa in Tokyo since 1909.

These smaller taiyaki are being filled with a green bean paste, and come in a small, medium or large bag. I didn’t eat these ones as I was full on my other two indulgences.

Do these look familiar? Yes, they are similar to the Emperor’s Puff we had in Sydney last year, and are basically a cooked sweet batter. Kept warm over a hot plate, shovelfuls are heaped into bags for festivalgoers. These were particularly popular with the locals.

I just fell in love with this happy chappy, the purveyor of owara tamaten, little cubes of grilled honey-flavoured meringuey/marshmallowy goodness. His cheeky chuckle brought a smile to our faces as I held up two fingers and said “owara tamaten o futatsu kudasai” (”I’ll have two please”).

A delightful translation of this unusual little treat was posted above the street stall for the benefit of tourists (such as us). Interesting to note that agar-agar, a vegetable gelatin derived from seaweed, is used as the setting agent.

The dexterity he displayed as he picked up the soft meringue cubes with chopsticks was very impressive. They were submerged into a mixture of egg yolk, honey and mirin (for colour and taste), allowed to drip dry and then deposited on a hot plate to toast.

They taste as amazing as they sound and look - cloudy puffs of eggy sweetness, tinged with a sweet honeyed outer coating. You can purchase them in take-away packs, but to eat them straight off the grill became one of those eye-closing, mouth-savouring moments.

Thank you Sarah from the “equally-excellent” Sarah Cooks and Sarah Discovers How to Eat, for awarding me an E for Excellent Blog Award. Sarah’s mouth watering posts often have me pining for great food and reminiscing about my recent trip to Japan (which she also did last year).

I’d like to throw this award to a couple of my favorite blogs, Claire (aka mutemonkey) from downtown Melbourne Gastronome, and Cindy and Michael from where’s the beef.

This street stall along the picturesque Miyagawa River was cooking up mouth-watering kushiyaki (skewers) of Hida beef - a local speciality of the region. Hida beef are raised in the meadows of the Hida plateau for about two years, and are known for their fatty tissue and rich flavor.

The skewers were grilled on the coals and dipped periodically into a tub of sweet Japanese style BBQ sauce. The flavour of the meat was intensely good, battling even the flavour of the baste.

Read about why we were in Takayama (Japan) here.

One of the more popular street snacks in Takayama are mitarashi-dango, skewers of grilled rice dumplings (mochi) coated in a soya based sauce. In fact, the unmistakable smell of burning vegemite will certainly lead you to their location.

They are excessively salty and extraordinarily chewy, and will keep you chomping for a good five minutes.

Read about why we were in Takayama (Japan) here.

When we were in Japan last year, we were lucky enough to coincide our visits with a number of matsuri (festivals). Our first such experience was in the township of Takayama, a quaint little village in the mountainous Hida region of the Gifu prefecture - five hours from Tokyo by train.

The Autumn Hachiman Matusri is the annual celebration of the Sakurayama Hachimangu Shrine. In essence it is a procession of a dozen heavily decorated yatai (festival floats) that are paraded/pulled through the streets (usually by sake soddled citizens) over the course of a couple of days.

The yatai (floats) are absolutely huge, and take real effort to move and manoeuvre. This poor gent obviously provided aesthetic as opposed to any real pulling power.

Several of the floats are installed with karakuri ningyo, mechanical marionettes that move and dance by pulling on ropes and levers within the float. This is a very popular performance, and unfortunately I couldn’t get close enough to snap a good shot. But they were lovely to watch, even from our distance away.

On the evening of the first day the yatai (floats) are pulled through the streets of the old town. The yomatsuri (evening festival) is also a highlight - the cacophany of beating drums, clapping hands, chanting and singing enlivens everyone into a festivitous mood. It was awesome.

Now you are probably saying to yourself - but Mellie, why aren’t you talking about food? Well the next few posts will be dedicated to looking at the food we found in this gorgeous little township, from the markets to the festival street food.

The simple things in life are often the best, such as the Kaisen Chirashi ($21.80) lunchtime set at Shoya. Fat tiles of tuna, swordfish, kingfish, salmon, arc shell (perhaps?!?), prawn, tobiko and a few other unknown piscatorial treats. All of it fresh. All of it tasting like the sea. Sitting on top perfect grains of bitey white rice and spikey slivers of toasted nori.

You can read about a previous visit to Shoya here.