"Sweet Bean" - a few words about the Naomi Kawase charming film and about dorayaki - sweet pancakes with red beans

I saw dorayaki for the first time - sweet pancakes filled with red beans, in the movie "Sweet Bean". This film is a visual feast, beautiful frames and an extraordinary story about culinary searches and life's difficulties. The film also touches on the subject of severe illness - leprosy. What I liked the most was watching the bean stuffing form. We associate red beans with dry dishes. In Japan and South Korea, it is made into a sweet paste. Before it is made, it is boiled for many hours and ingredients are added that give it a special taste. [Spoiler] Knowledge about the secret ingredients was possessed by one of the main characters of the film, an old lady An, and thanks to that she managed to help spin a prosperous small restaurant with pancakes.

Source of the photo: thatjapanesedramaguy

Here you can watch the movie trailer:

From the moment I saw this movie, I really wanted to go to such a pub and eat freshly fried fritters with an unusual filling. I knew that when I went to Japan, it would finally succeed. And indeed, on the first day in Tokyo, I noticed the place where these delicacies were sold. It was not as atmospheric restaurant as in the Naomi Kawase movie, it was more like fast food, but I decided to try what was on offer.

Like in other places, I could also see the process of making pancakes live here.

You could choose different fillings. I was only interested in red beans, but you could also buy a pancake with ham and cheese filling, cream with soy milk, pumpkin or okonomi shibutama (I have no idea what it was).

Finally came the moment when I received my pie. I made the first bite and... the filling was not too sweet, but tasty. There was a lot of it and I quickly devoured my pie. And then another one. If you ever were in Japan or Korea, or saw such cakes somewhere in your country, I highly recommend them to you.