From April 13th, the cafe and bar "From O" in front of Owani Onsen Station (Owani Town, Minami Tsugaru District, TEL 0172-55-9933) will begin selling "Wani Dogs," hot dogs made with crocodile meat.

The store opened in June 2022. It is run by three young people who live in Owani. The three were classmates and moved back to their hometown to help enliven their town. In addition to opening the store, they also plan events and launch a Neputa group.

The three chefs take turns coming up with new menu items each month, and if one proves popular it will become a regular menu item. The "Wani-Dog" (1,300 yen) was thought up by Yamamoto Haruya, who said he came up with the idea for a menu item using crocodile meat as a pun on the Japanese word for large crocodile. "It started with a simple desire to try crocodile meat. When I tried it, it had a texture similar to chicken, so I first tried deep-frying it," said Yamamoto.

According to Yamamoto, he made fried chicken but it didn't look very impressive, so he came up with a different dish. He found some green hot dog buns made from komatsuna powder and came up with a hot dog filled with crocodile meat to resemble a crocodile's tail. He used green chips to represent the scales and topped it with avocado. The kanji for avocado is "wani-nashi."

Yamamoto smiles and says, "Owani has lots of crocodile sculptures. I hope people will enjoy a crocodile dog as a snack while walking around town."