I just realized that my favorite food find from my LA trip last month has gone unblogged … until now! Living in Boston, I have two major culinary complaints:

1. Dim sum is not an event here.
2. The only Japanese food readily available is sushi.

I’ve come to terms with brunch replacing my standard Sunday dim sum outing, but I can literally count on one finger the number of non-sushi places that serve Japanese food. (Hint: All of these places are within the Porter Exchange Mall in Cambridge.) I yearn for reliable Japanese curry and deep-fried balls of octopussy goodness. Most of my East Coast-dwelling friends don’t even know what Japanese food is. An informal poll using the question, “Can you name one Japanese dish besides sushi?” resulted in the following responses: ” uhh… ” and “soup”.

Curry potato croquette: flaky, fried, and full of seasoned potato mush, topped with sweet mayo

I took advantage of my trip back home by scoping out the Japanese street food scene. I’ve never actually been to Japan, so I can’t attest to the authenticity of the below items, but I have it on good authority (from people who have visited) that the offerings at Genki Living, a local chain, are pretty good approximations of the real dishes. The takoyaki, at least, impressed me. I know “octopus balls” sounds unappealing but these do not involve testicles, just greasy, tentacle-y deliciousness.

Takoyaki: fried dough balls with pieces of octopus tentacles inside, topped with bonito (dried fish) flakes, a mayo sauce, and a sweet/tangy okonomiyaki sauce

In general, Los Angeles with its huge Asian immigrant population has solid options for Far East eats. The best places in LA for Japanese street food lie beyond the San Gabriel Valley in Little Tokyo where teeny eateries and food carts offer all the food-on-a-stick you can handle.

My friend Johnny strikes an Asian tourist pose in front of a wall at Genki Living.

Genki Living also has taiyaki (not to be confused with the previously mentioned takoyaki), a waffle cake filled with chocolate, red bean paste, or anything your little heart desires. Typically, taiyaki is sweet but Genki also has varieties with ham, cheese, and corn. Also, taiyaki is shaped like a fish. Yeah, the Japanese are f’ing weird.

(Left) Fried squid balls: deep-fried, breaded balls of squid paste topped off with a sprinkling of seaweed — a 3 Buck Bite! (Right) Me posing with the telephone booth that inexplicably resides inside.

Other items at Genki include: okonomiyaki (a crepe-like pancake with savory fillings), sweet crepes, oden (a Japanese stew of fish cakes and daikon), all your typical Asian drinks, and for the really unexperimental, fries. Everything on the menu is priced like it’s on the street. I don’t recall anything over $8, including the more robust items like crepes. The squid balls (eight per order) rang in at $3.99 and the huge takoyaki were $5.79 for an order of four. Quick, cheap, and super yummy, Genki has pretty much stolen my heart. I can’t wait for my next visit home.

Genki Living
651 West Duarte Road
Arcadia, CA 91007
(626) 447-5116‎