At 7-11 they had Oden skewers, there were six different items so I tried the ham meatball.
Basically it tasted like a meatball and it was slightly spicy, the spices in that meatball tasted like the sichuan spices with aniseed and chili.
(Quoted from wiki)Oden (
おでん) is a
Japanese winter dish consisting of several ingredients such as boiled
eggs,
daikon radish,
konnyaku, and processed
fish cakes stewed in a light,
soy-flavoured
dashi broth. Ingredients vary according to region and between each household.
Karashi (Japanese
mustard) is often used as a condiment.
Oden was originally what is now commonly called misodengaku or simply dengaku; konnyaku or
tofu was boiled and one ate them with
miso. Later, instead of using miso, ingredients were cooked in dashi and oden became popular.
Oden is often sold from
food carts, and most Japanese
convenience stores have simmering oden pots in winter. Many different kinds of oden are sold, with single-ingredient varieties as cheap as 100 yen.
Regional variations
In
Nagoya, it may be called
Kantō-ni (
関東煮) and
soy sauce is used as a dipping sauce. Miso oden is simmered in hatcho-miso broth, which is lightly sweet taste. Konjac and tofu are common ingredients.
In
Kansai area they are sometimes called
Kantō-daki (
関東煮 or 関東炊き) and tend to be stronger flavoured than the lighter
Kantō version.
Oden in
Shizuoka use a dark coloured broth flavoured with beef stock and dark soy sauce, and all ingredients are skewered. Dried and ground fish (sardine, mackerel, or
katsuobushi) and
aonori powder (edible seaweed) are sprinkled on top before eating.
Udon restaurants in
Kagawa Prefecture in
Shikoku almost always offer oden as a side dish, to be eaten with sweet miso while waiting for the udon.
In
Taiwan, the dish is called
Heilun/Olun (
黑輪) in the
Taiwanese language. Besides the more traditional ingredients,
olen also uses many local ingredients, such as pork
meatballs and
blood puddings. More recently, oden is offered in
convenience stores and is known as
guandongzhu (
Kuantung-chu;
關東煮) in
Mandarin.
In
Korea,
Odaeng (오댕) is a street food that's sold from small carts and is served with a spicy soup. It's very common on the streets of Korea and there are many restaurants that have it on their menu or specialize in it.
