la.foodblogging

Co-Manager Hajnal Molnar-Szakacs at work

Fulfilled is a brand new venue offering a completely unique treat, dubbed by owner Susumu Tsuchihashi as “Ima.” The Beverly Hills-based shopfront is an exquisite little jewel-box of a café, where they offer a traditional Japanese delicacy known as imagawa-yaki but with a twist!!

This pocket-like Japanese dessert is often found at festivals and other places that one might, say, in the States, find funnel cakes. Traditionally, imagawa-yaki are made from a pancake-like batter that is cooked in a special pan (similar to a waffle iron but minus the honeycomb pattern), and filled with sweet Azuki bean paste.

History:
As far back as the late 1700s, Imagawa-yaki began to be sold near the Kanda Imagawabashi bridge, hence the name [the “yaki” suffix means fried].

Anyway, the batter is prepared and cooked on a cast aluminum grill with the paste filling sandwiched and then cooked within. But here in LA, the bold and inventive Susumu Tsuchihashi has developed the treat to include a nice variety of different fillings and flavours from all over the globe.

The traditional ‘Ima,’ called Sweet Geisha and filled with azuki bean, goes for $1.75, while all the other, more complicated flavours sell for $2.75.

MENU

The Honey Yakuza contains goat’s cheese, mission fig, honey, walnut and cracked pepper. I wanted to like this one but felt it definitely needed more balance to its ingredients; the walnut overpowered all the other flavour components.

Others on the menu with cute and catchy names include sweet ones such as Harajuku Monkey (banana and Nutella) — this one was my favourite — and Karoke Kitty (Strawberry, cream cheese and Ghirandelli white chocolate) or savory ones such as Sumo Italiano (Prosciutto di Parma, aged parmesan and fresh basil) and Spicy Samurai (chicken apple sausage, pepper jack cheese, green chili and fresh cilantro).

Verdict:
I’m glad I sampled these pancake-like treats, but to be perfectly honest I found them to be fairly stodgy and a bit on the heavy side…

I first heard about Fulfilled over at EaterLA, so check out their recent postings: one & two.

Chandelier

Fulfilled
9045 S. Santa Monica Blvd, Beverly Hills, between Canon and Beverly Drives
(310) 860 0776
Open daily 10.30am – 7pm
Free two hour parking is available across the street, with entrances on Canon and Beverly Drives.

By MaxMillion (see more of her posts). Max Million is the nom de 'net of Pauline Adamek. Born in Sydney, Australia, Pauline has lived in Los Angeles for the past ten years and finds it agrees with her. She has been reviewing films and filing celebrity-based interview articles since 1991, and has filed stories from various international film festivals, including Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Toronto and Sundance. She is completing a family cookbook and has also written novels for 8-12 year olds. She is currently writing two screenplays.