Mitsuru Cafe

Oh yea I like this place cause of one thing and my girlfriend and I keep coming back cause of this 1 thing. This 1 thing is their red bean buns which my girl and I calls yummy bun (portraying the animé Doreamon’s favorite food). It is described just like that, yummy! It is super fresh that you can actually see how they cook it. It taste like a pancake sandwich with sweet red bean paste inside. So simple, but soooo goood!!! Overall, I’ll come back here just to order a dozen of this delicious goodness :)

This place is a landmark in little Tokyo. It is most stop for red bean paste. I have tried to get some on many visits. However, shop is closed. My lucky night getting some tonight and enjoying them. Getting some more for my old man.
By paying $ 0.75 each to $ 2. You can tell my age.

I love the Imagawayaki here! For anyone who adores red bean with a mochi texture of warm goodness, GO HERE!!!
Their Imagawayaki is so delicious that customers line up for it and the other snack delights in their menu.
The chicken karaage is so crispy-​licious and it would take me 4 orders of those to keep me happy and satisfied.
Little Tokyo is so much more fun and exciting to go to when I think of Mitsuru Café.
Give this place a try and enjoy!

Located in the Japanese village plaza surrounded by tourists and locals. This is the spot if you’re craving a quick cheap bite on the go. I was craving takoyaki so my BF and I ventured out to Little Tokyo to get some. It was $ 2.50 for 3 takoyaki balls, which to my surprise was really cheap! I was a little disappointed that it wasn’t fresh nor warm when I ate it. However, it was still very good.
My BF also decided to get a imagawayaki (red bean cake) for $ 2. Just. OMG. It was seriously and honestly the best imagawayaki I’ve ever had. I grew up eating these little bad boys and I’ve never had one THAT good before. The cake outside was warm and toasty whereas the red bean paste inside wasn’t too sweet; Just perfect.
The service was wonderful too; The lady working was really sweet and answered any questions I had. Got in and out of there in less than 5 minutes to scarf down the snacks outside in literally just minutes. Yum yum yum!

Imagawayakis is a mouthful…
…to pronounce AND to eat if you decide to stuff the treat all in one bite!
SO GOOD THOUGH.
Try not to burn your tongue…
* YES — Made fresh daily at this tiny shop in middle of Lil Tokyo center
* YES — Only $ 2 per hockey-​puck-​sized-​goodness
* YES — Only served with traditional red bean stuffing
* YES — Small casual Japanese café is also open for dining in; To-​Go line near entry door
* FYI — Parking lots and street meters available for parking for Lil Tokyo
* FYI — Cash only
Recommend!

The Takoyaki and Mochi are the best here. The women that work here are fast, sweet and very accommodating! They churned out 16 orders of Takoyaki in under 15min for my company’s meeting. Love this place, a definite Little Tokyo staple! Very authentic. I’ll be coming back to broaden my taste buds with their sushi and red bean cakes!

Ordered the famous red bean pancake and it was delicious! The mochi balls were good also, I ordered the shrimp balls and 1 order filled me up. My favorite is definitely the red bean pancake, it was freshly made, warm and moist!

I am another one who only gets the imagawayaki here, red bean sponge cake. This place brings back my childhood memories. In my (short little =)) life time, I have tried many imagawayakis in different parts of the world, and hands down, Mitsuru has the BESTEST (we are so lucky to be in LA)!! Many places make them with very little or less red bean, but not Mitsuru. Every imagawayaki here is made fresh daily with the red bean paste ooozes out of the cake when you bite into the cake, every time. Yes, they are sweet, but aren’t they supposed to be? After all it is a dessert! Often times they’d run out before the close. So you know these imagawayakis are THAT GOOD!
I have tried other goodies from Mitsuru, but I think because the imagawayakis are so good and exceptional that they make the other stuff just a «meh» average. There is almost always a line out the door and over 90% of the people in line are for the imagawayakis.
I have never just come to Mitsuru when I visit Japanese Village. It is alway after a lunch or dinner meal at Komasa, Oomasa or Shabu Shabu because these places will validate parking for 2 hours. So last night after Oomasa, we stopped by and got a couple of the imagawayakis. However, what caught my eyes were the beautiful macaron ice creams on the side inside the freezers. I didn’t try them, but they are definitely an eyeful. So I now have an excuse to be back for their macaron ice creams! Yay!

We were in Little Tokyo around 3pm so many restaurants closed. My hubby and I checked for a place to have a late lunch and found Mitsuru. It doesn’t look fancy and feels a bit on the grungy side but don’t let that fool you. Authentic cuisine & Japanese owned, we walked in to see these ice cream macaron sandwiches whoch looked so delicious. Wheb we sat down, we looked at the menu, featuring a modest sushi section, donburis and your typical hot dishes like teriyaki. Both of us went for the daily special, which was only $ 9.50 each, included 3pcs of tuna sashimi, choice of chicken or pork katsu, a small seaweed salad, mandarin orange slices, miso soup and rice.
The food was tasty and filling, the staff were friendly, the macaroni ice cream was perfect.
I only took away 1 star because it looks old inside but the food was good.

This place is known for the imagawa-​yaki, which is red bean (azuki) filled into a pancakey-​like pastry. Be prepared for a long line, but hold fast, be patient, and you will be rewarded with nomz like you’ve never had before.
The workers here are all really patient, and are really helpful to the customers. I love taking friends visiting LA to this area of Little Tokyo, to experience some traditional festival snacks. During Obon and Nisei Week, definitely check this place out, as they usually have other snack specials, and can be seen during festivals making their treats outside as well. The price for the imagawa yaki is reasonable, and you can’t beat their freshness!

If you have 20 – 25 min and are a big fan of red bean pastries and takoyaki, then look no further. There is about a 10 min wait to get to the front of the line and then a extra 15 min wait for the imagawayaki. There’s imagawayaki (red bean cake), friend chicken, fried shrimp, rice cake and takoyaki skewers readily available. I tried a couple of the skewers — could’ve been much better if they were warmer. The rice cake skewer was nice and chewy. Great if you’re already a fan of rice cake. The red bean cake was delicious. Worth a 15 – 20 min wait though maybe not much more than that.
Staff is pleasant. Line is mostly outside the store so bring a jacket if you go on a brisk night of the week.

Was shopping in Japanese Village and saw the line out the door here. The Red Bean Cakes were delicious! Hot, fresh and tasty! Each cake was $ 2. Great find. Cool that you get to watch them make the cakes right in the window.

I love their imagawayaki (red bean cake)!! So fluffy and soft! Like Chapsal (korean)! And the red beans are perfect!

I made it Ma… I made it!!! Finally came on a day that they were opened!!! ^_​_​_​^
LITERALLY THE BEST IMAGAWAYAKI (AZUKI RED BEAN) MINI CAKES #1 000 0000EVA
ONLY $ 2 FOR PIPING HOT IMAGAWAYAKI… I’M HELLLA CAPITAL D!
Literally, the cake part was not too sweet so the azuki bean really goes well with it! Great portioning of the azuki beans and cake too! I find that some places either put too much or too little azuki beans! And the workers were so sweet and cute!!!
Overall, I was really impressed! How can something so simple be sooOOoooo good?! I can’t wait to go back to try the dango mochi balls!!!

I was so excited to try this place after looking at the Unilocal reviews. I got the rice cake with soy sauce and sugar (forgot what it was called) and dakoyaki and one red bean cake.
The rice cake was good! It was soft and sweet.
The dakoyaki was too salty and without the usual condiments I was slightly disappointed, but it’s not specializing in it so I’m not gonna complain.
The bread was really good! Nice and eggy dough. Definitely worth a try! (1.50 a piece)
Will I come back? Maybe the next time I vacation here.
The lady was really nice. She thought I was Japanese (I’m Korean) and started speaking in Japanese with me hahaha. I didn’t know how to react

My friends and I came here as a snack before dinner. We each got a red bean cake ($ 2.00) and a takoyaki ($ 2.50) to share. Both were quite delicious. The red bean cake was freshly made so it was still warm and gooey inside with plenty of red bean paste. The takoyaki was super soft on the inside. It had a great seafood taste to it. It is definitely worth a try as a quick snack!

Looking for a snack?! You’ve found the place!
Funny enough, me and my friends were sitting in the little quarry right outside for around an hour trying to figure out where to eat dinner before we drove back to NorCal. After much debate, we realized that we weren’t hungry at all so we opted for a snack. Of course, while we sat there for an hour, I totally noticed the never-​ending line in front of Mitsuru Café so I figured, «hey why not, let’s check it out».
So the way this place works is that you order based on availability. Unfortunately for me, all I wanted was the red bean cakes and those take a while to make. Guess how long I had to wait? I have no idea tbh, probably more than 20 minutes. In fact, when I got to the counter, I saw all these bags lined up with ppl’s names who placed orders before me. Regardless, it wasn’t a big deal since we were trying to kill time anyways.
I ended up ordering 3 of these things and they were so warm and delicious! Definitely not something you should save because the texture will change so don’t be selfish and order too many!

RED BEAN CAKES – That is all.
I never knew these little beauties existed until my friend told me to save some room after udon for some dessert. He told me it was a mom and pop type of shop located in the Japanese Village that sells AMAZING red bean cakes and he said whenever he is in the area he always has to stop by to grab a few.
It was really easy to locate. Once you walk through the door, you can see the red bean cakes being flipped right in front of you (think Takoyaki). They offer a lot of other things as well like takoyaki, mochi, fishcakes, and more but I was in no mood for food, I wanted something sweet. My friend and I ordered 6 red bean cakes for $ 2 a pop; I guess it also went up in price from what my friend said.
Now the Imagawayaki was phenomenal. We got ours fresh from the griddle and it was still hot when I bit into it. The texture of the cake itself is light and the edges are slightly crispy. They weren’t stingy on the red bean either as every bite had a little red bean. My friend wasn’t lying, these cakes are amazing and I too will be sure to grab it whenever I can.

We were wandering around Little Tokyo, and my sister saw people holding red bean cakes, so we decided to go find them. I wasn’t really in the mood for them, but the doorway to this place seemed busy, so we decided to line up.
The red bean cakes were pretty good, a chewy bread texture filled with tasty red bean paste. We also got a skewer of takoyaki and fish cake. While I’m not a fan of takoyaki, the breading here is soft and delicious. However, a very tiny piece of octopus only.
This place is a nice stop for a quick snack, and while they don’t let you sit inside, there’s plenty of seating area outside.

Their red bean cake (which you can see being made thru the window) has the most PERFECT breading. So smooth and soft. Only $ 1 so you must try it!
Their mitarashi dango is a simple $ 2 piece that is a nice soft, chewy dango with thick sugar glaze. It’s very good but what’s the best here imo is
Their takoyaki! Squid balls so amazing. I’ve never tasted such exquisite and perfect takoyaki. At first glance it seems nothing special but once you take a bite it’s heaven. Idk what the filling is other than the small squid piece, but it’s great and even better when the takoyaki were just made. I bought one to share with my bf, then we went back for seconds! $ 2.50 a stick