A life of travel, shameless gluttony, hedonism and occasional enslavement

Long before we heard of Sadaharu Aoki, there was a Japanese Pastry Chef in Barcelona, doing his thing and establishing himself as one of the best pastry destinations in the city.  Takashi WHO? Takashi Ochiai and his Patisseria Ochiai.

He was a pastry chef in Japan, but left for Europe to seek knowledge and experience, as is always the case.  His travels brought him to Belgium and London, where he worked for a few years and picked up French and English.  Chatting with him was great as we could communicate freely!  

Eventually, he ended up in Spain, learning their traditional pastries and decided to set up shop in Barcelona in 1983.  Besides specializing in Japanese pastry, he is also an astute businessman and imports Japanese products for distribution (Yann Duytsche is one of his customers) as well as produces ice creams and chocolates for wholesale.

There I was, sitting in his shop and asking what the specialties of the house were and soon enough, Chef Ochiai popped out from the kitchen with a friendly smile and introduced himself.  It was an unexpected surprise and after introductions, he invited me to visit his kitchen after eating.

Not so traditional, but at the same time, typically Japanese, this Chocolate Daifuku was coated in cocoa powder with a hint of cinnamon….very nice.

The interior was intensely chocolatey and very light, which was a great texture to go with the soft but slightly yielding to-the-teeth mochi.  The characteristic berry flavours of Manjari really kick through this mousse, but the intensity and sometimes awkward acidity was balanced by the rice flour mochi and cinnamon powder.  In the hands of a lesser chef, the Manjari would have been overwhelming.  

 The 2nd Daifuku was a plain one, which was surprisingly not sweet and had a very beautiful red bean flavour.  Could he have been using Azuki beans from Japan…where there is this ‘Terroir’ thing going on?  True, its flavour is very different from the generic chinese ones we can get cheaply as this one had a very deep but satisfying red-bean flavour.  With the generic red beans I have used before, which are 50% larger than the Japanese Hokkaido ones, the taste is not so intense and that may explain why red bean pastes are usually so sweet…..the sugar is there to flavour it, as the beans themselves have not much themselves.

I am pretty sure the beans are ’special’ beans that Chef Ochiai imports directly from Japan as he gave away his recipe and technique.  Basically, equal quantities of bean and sugar, cooked to 65 brix.  He does this in a large copper bowl.  Without the same ingredients he has, having a recipe is futile.

While I could not take photos of his kitchens (Did not ask actually!), his kitchens are dispersed throughout the building, connected by narrow doorways like a labyrinth.  On one cramped floor, he had his ice cream facilities with well used Taylor machines.  On another, he had an old enrober where the chocolates were made.  

Did I mention his green tea chocolates brought me back to the train station at Uji City in Kyoto?  Stepping off the train, the beautiful seaweedy, green teay and roasty smell of maccha hits your nostrils.  His green tea chocolates were EXACTLY that.  

This place may not be as vogue and fashionable as Sadaharu Aoki, but I throughly enjoyed every morsel and second I was there.  Besides making my top 3 list of best pastry in Barcelona (There is no personal order of preference in that list!), Chef Ochiai is one of the nicest chefs I have ever met and he was so open with his knowledge and warm hearted that I might want to do a stage there if I can afford living expenses in Barcelona.

Thank you Chef Ochiai, for one of the more memorable pastry experiences in my life.  I will visit you again one day soon!