20040817

okonomiyaki!



how much do i love saying that word? okonomiyaki! oh! kono meeeyakeee...oh, kono? miyaki! okay, *enough*. kind of a cross between a pizza and an omelette, generally made from flour, eggs, cabbage, shrimp (or in this case octopus) then topped with bonito shavings, aonori (dried green seaweed), a brown sauce which is a type of thick worcestershire sauce, and japanese-style mayonnaise. okonomiyaki restaurants are usually a place for friends to gather and have a cheap and cheerful meal; okonomiyaki at home usually means you're cleaning out the fridge....

part of the eating olympics, btw.

10 comments:

Hi Santos,

Boy you made a lot of dishes! I hope you didn't eat them all by yourself! LOL! BTW, this looks yummy...do I sense a craving for Japanese food?

Stoppit! Stoppit! I am perma-hungry and nostalgic all at once. Okonomiyaki restaurants are so much fun, and I found the idea of cooking your own meal at a restaurant both strange and appealing - karaoke for food. There are limits though, one place, any time I went anywhere near the spatula, the lady in charge would rush over to give further advice.

hi reid

yeah, i *could've* but i didn't think it was wise :-) anyway, my companions would've been a little upset by that.

actually, we probably eat japanese food/bento about 50% of the time at work, and maybe a quarter of the time at home, but i haven't quite gotten to the point where i'll make this a bento blog...i'm trying to space out the japanese food posts, but the past couple of weeks have been bento-centric.

anthony

i miss the whole okonomiyaki restaurant vibe, i don't know of any here or in the mainland; the one i know about in honolulu is supposed to be ultra-expensive, which is just wrong. the one thing i just couldn't get the hang of was monjayaki (sp?) which looked totally disgusting on the grill, and as far as i could figure out, was all about eating burnt residue....

Well if you put it that way, actually as someone who loves the crusty burnt bits on roasts, monjyayaki is pretty good and is the "Tokyo Okonimiyaki". Biggest problem was not burning my tongue (repeatedly).

ah, so that's what the lady in charge was on about: "stupid man--if you put that burning spatula in your mouth one more time...!"

Hi Santos,

Are you talking about Okonomiyaki Chibo at the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center? I went there once and it was ridiculously over priced in my opinion. After all, this is working man's food. Perhaps you're paying for the ambiance...or the Japanese are paying to get food from home! In any case, I had this about a month and a half ago at Shirokiya when they had their semi-annual Hiroshima fair. It was wonderful. They made it with fried noodles! YUMMY!

chibo, that's the one. i've heard about it, but i don't think i'll ever have the desire to eat overpriced okonomiyaki!

Reid

Shirokiya - the Japanese izakaya chain? How good is hawaii, I loved that place - their menu with pictures saved me from illiterate starvation.

i know reid will have a more interesting answer, but while we're waiting for it, i'll just go ahead and say "no"

Hi Anthony & Santos,

Shirokiya, unfortunately, is not a Japanese izakaya chain, but a department store (it's part of Tokyu). On the main selling floor, they sell electronics, toys, imported furniture, books and music. On the upper level, they have household appliances and food products. From time to time, they have product fairs from different regions around Japan. Just recently was the Hokkaido fair, which I think may still be going on. There is also a small buffet style restaurant and vendors which cook food in front of you and pack them to sell as bentos.