okonomiyaki

So lets be honest, food is one of the most fun and most stressful parts about traveling. It can be so much fun to discover new foods that you love, new foods that you had never imagined eating. Its even fun eating things that disgust you so much you never want to see them again. But its also stressful. Stressful when you don't know how to order, don't have any idea what you're ordering, or how to eat it.

Okonomiyaki was that for me. I had heard that Hiroshima has some of the best okonomiyaki restaurants in all of Japan. So I had to try it. But I wasn't even sure I knew what it was. I had heard that it was a self-cook kind of operation, hibachi style food with a cook your own steak sort of atmosphere. I was nervous about eating odd seafood as is was, but cooking my own just sounded like asking for a intestinal nightmare.

So if you're going to jump into the pool you might as well jump into the deep end right? I figure you might as well pick the place packed with locals cause that way if you're drowning there is more people to recognize it and help you out. Or more people to entertain. So that's what I did.

Okonomiyaki starts as a thin crepe-like, round pancake which is placed on top of a pile of cabbage and sprouts to keep the steam in. As the veggies cook down, the meats are grilled. In my case, the meats were squid, shrimp and prosciutto. A circle of noodles starts grilling about the same time. Once the meats are done they are combined with the veggies and placed on the noodles after which an egg is scrambled in a circle of the same diameter. Once the egg is done its all stacked together and coated with cheese and teriyaki sauce.

Let me just say yum! A couple of beers and one okonomiyaki plate later I had one happy belly! I was just glad that I didn't have to cook it myself. Now, I will be searching out okonomiyaki restaurants as their master.