Okonomiyaki

Saturday, September 27th, 2008 by Rintaun | Food

I just got home from dinner. Me and Mike met with our friend Koutarou and his two friends, a chinese guy named Ding (who Koutarou called Dragon) and another (I think) Japanese guy from Osaka whose name I didn’t catch.

We wanted to try Okonomiyaki, a popular Japanese dish. The name literally translates to something like “cook what you like”. Basically when you order, you get a bowl of the stuff you ordered (ours had bacon, shellfish, shrimp, eggs, and various other things in it — it was a bit expensive at about ￥1100).

Once you get it, you mix it up all in the bowl and then shovel it out onto the grill in the table (teppan). At this point you form it into a round, flat shape, kind of like a pancake, and cover it. You let it cook for 6 minutes, then remove the cover, flip it, and let it cook for another 6 minutes. You then remove the cover, flip the thing again (it now stays together rather well), and you’re almost there.

The next step is to put okonomiyaki sauce on it. It’s kinda like Worcestershire sauce, but it’s a bit thicker, a bit sweeter, and has a kind of BBQ sauce tang to it. ALMOST to the end… next you put katsuobushi (flakes of fish) and aonori (green seaweed flakes) on the top. A lot of people (not me) put Japanese mayonnaise on it also, which, granted, is better than American mayonnaise… but still not good. And that’s pretty much it. You cut it and eat it.

And holy crap, it was good. I took pictures of pretty much the entire process of making it, but they’re on Mike’s computer at the moment (I can only get pictures off my phone to Mike’s computer for now), so I’ll upload them a bit later.

In any case, it was definitely worth the ￥1100. It was very delicious, easy to make, and it was a really good experience. Check back for pictures…

EDIT: Pictures added below… enjoy! Note that I know it doesn’t look appetizing at first, but it was very, very good.

5 Comments to Okonomiyaki

NoR
September 28, 2008

What’s in Japanese mayonnaise? (mayonnaise ftw, btw)

Matthew Lanigan
September 28, 2008

I have no idea, but it tastes completely different than American mayonnaise… :/

Tanka
September 28, 2008

“Japanese mayonnaise is typically made with apple cider vinegar or rice vinegar and a small amount of MSG, which gives it a different flavor profile from mayonnaise made from distilled vinegar. It is most often sold in soft plastic squeeze bottles. Its texture is thinner than most Western commercial mayonnaises. A variety containing karashi (Japanese mustard) is also common.”

From Wikipedia.