Otako Monsta Bacolod is the newest Takoyaki stand in Bacolod City. According to them, they’re serving the best takoyaki in town!
Takoyaki is a Japanese street food that consists of a fried batter ball. It is usually stuffed with octopus and sauce is poured over it. Some additional stuff like dried bonito flakes, seaweed and seasonings are added.
This Japanese dish has become pretty popular with Filipino people and it is a common sight to see Takoyaki stands pretty much everywhere you look.
Otako Monsta Bacolod has two branches in Bacolod City, One in Art District Mandalagan and one on 14 street – Lacson streets. We went to their art district branch on opening day to check them out!
Otako Monsta Bacolod is located in the Art district, Mandalagan, where the old Chicken House used to be. The management is converting that area into a food court and Otako Monsta is one of the first stalls in the area.
The stall is very nice, with wood paneling and Japanese Lanterns hanging from the side.
The staff was hard at work making several orders of takoyaki. We snuck a peek and we saw that they were using real octopus bits for the Takoyaki! Wow! Most of the time, Takoyaki stands in the Philippines uses squid instead of octopus (or have nothing inside at all)
The Takoyaki looks great! There were several kinds being cooked. This picture shows their default Takoyaki flavor. There’s plenty of things being stuffed into the Takoyaki! The menu says that there’s benishouga (pickled red ginger) octopus, tempura flakes and spring onion in each takoyaki ball.
This ball is the “Monsta” giant ball which Otako Monsta Bacolod claims is overloaded with baby octopus, scallops, shrimp and cheese. Very interesting!
There’s also Takoyaki dessert! Otako Monsta Bacolod has green matcha balls stuffed with Nutella and sprinkled with powder sugar and drizzled with sauce. Otako Monsta Bacolod calls it the Dezato Yaki.
Here’s the menu of Otako Monsta Bacolod. They have six flavors so we got the most interesting ones. We got the Ebiyaki – which is shrimp, Hotate-yaki which has scallops, Chizuyaki– a four cheese Takoyaki and finally the Monsta ball.
That’s when things sort of got dicey when we were ordering at Otako Monsta Bacolod. You see, they were using an electric griddle so the Takoyaki weren’t cooking fast enough. For this sort of street food, you really need a hot griddle so a gas powered one would have been able to maintain high temperatures, hence cooking would have been faster.
The staff also seemed to need more practice in making the Takoyaki. They should have PRACTICED a lot before opening.
All in all the total wait time for my order of four boxes was 57 minutes. We ordered at 12 noon for lunch and we got the orders at 1:07 pm with an additional wait time since the fourth order wasn’t ready yet. Maddening. Several times we thought of just cancelling the order but we decided that since we were already here, we might as well stick it out. The owners were very apologetic and offered some free iced tea as an apology for the long wait.
The wait was somewhat worth it as eventually the orders came out and they were very pretty and quite appetizing to look at!
Otako Monsta Bacolod’s Hotate Yaki came with a generous helping of shredded Bonito fish flakes, onions, Togarashi (Japanese spice powder), Aonori (seaweed powder) and fried tempura bits.
Very tasty and quite filling. Practically a meal na. Since this was an electric grill, the batter was not fully cooked inside but it wasn’t that bad.
Our next order was the giant Monsta ball which had a bit of everything. It also came with some meat floss! Very nice and flavorful. It put a smile on our faces. This dish even came with a baby octopus on top! It was very good except that the whole octopus had a strong taste and was hard to chew/cut. The next time we order, we’d request for the octopus to be cut up and mixed among the toppings.
The three boxes that we ordered had tasted the exact same. The last order to arrive was the ChizuYaki or four cheese yaki. It came with cheese flavored floss, cheese sauce and was stuffed with gooey cheese inside. Very nice and a very unique flavor. This one is our favourite dish at Otako Monsta Bacolod.
Otako Monsta Bacolod has great Takoyaki. They’re still ironing out the kinds with their restaurant and service so give them a chance. The Takoyaki is delicious, filling and definitely worth any minor inconveniences you encounter. But we wouldn’t want to wait another hour again for our food the next time we return. Hopefully they fix that part.
UPDATE: The very next day we went to their 14th street branch. It’s right in front of L’Fisher Hotel. The stall is super cute and eye catching! Feel free to pose for pictures as the black and white aesthetic makes for some great Instagram Pictures.
We’re glad to report that they’ve fixed the long wait times and we got our Takoyaki order in record time! Wow! Isn’t this amazing? Super delicious too!
Otako Monsta Bacolod – branches at 14th street and Art District Mandalagan
Telephone number: 0917 100 6044
Opening Hours: 10am-6pm But please check their official FB page for announcements.
The Bacolod Food Hunters did not accept any freebies, incentives or money for this article. We paid for our own food. We practice ethical blogging.
The Bacolod Food Hunters 
your suggestion to simply order the cheapest viand/seafood item makes sense; I’ve found that a good number of food purveyors tend to skimp on the ‘protein volume’ be it scallop, shrimp,or octopus or whatever. One such place (nearby) makes Mongolian ricebowls and while they’re satisfying and filling, there’s no appreciable difference between their beef or chicken or pork because the sauces are so overpowering. It would seem the same here. I’ll try them sometime, but if they’re running an electric grill, I think I’ll give them a pass.
give them a try, they fixed up their prep time now
We ordered our lunch today from Otako Monsta and it was greatly enjoyed by all.
thanks! Glad to here you are all ok!!