Nippon Phile: Okonomiyaki and Monjayaki
Over at NipponPhile blog you can read about a group outing to a restaurant called Sakuratei, situated near the nifty Design Festa Gallery.
I’ve been there! It’s a cool place, and you get to walk through the amazing fashion district of Harajuku to get there.
The gallery itself is affiliated with the Sakura Hostel of Asakusa, a place I heartily recommend spending some time at. The cost is under 3000 yen (about $30) per night for any dorm bed, and the dorm rooms are actually pretty spacious with good privacy and access to your own power outlets. Plus, free WiFi! It was my favorite budget accomodation in Japan.
The best part about spending your nights in the Asakusa area of Tokyo: you’re about a 5 minute walk away from about 10 different places to eat okonomiyaki! Hee hee.
In the Kanto (east) region of Japan, in which Tokyo makes up the largest and densest part, the Okonomi-yaki recipe normally used involves mixing the batter and the fillings all together in a bowl and then grilling them into a big, thick pancake. Depending on what you choose to put into it, it might look like a chunky green onion pancake or maybe more like a hamburger.
At restaurants, it’s customary to let the customer stir all the raw ingredients themselves and then cook the pancake right on the grill at their own table. Here’s a picture of the seafood okonomiyaki that I ate in a restaurant in Asakusa (a neighborhood in Tokyo).
At MomoZaza.com, this blogger documented the Tokyo-style okonomiyaki that they made one evening. She and her three friends all have different styles and enjoy different fillings. These are cool pictures (scroll towards the bottom to see them all) — you can see how “what you like” may change the end product, and maybe give you some ideas for doing your own.
Update: apparently Momo-Zaza.com is no more! Sad… I’m glad I got their basic recipe before the site went kaput!
Tokyo-style Okonomiyaki Recipe from Momo-Zaza.com:
- 2 cups Okonomiyaki mix* (try Yama-imo Oji-san)
- 1.5 cup water
- 4 eggs, uncooked (one for each person)
- 1/2 head of cabbage, chopped finely (think shredded like in cole slaw) – avoid using the center white parts)
Please visit this blog to read about and see all the variations! Oishii-sou!! (Looks tasty!)
* You can use regular all-purpose flour instead. (note: not bread flour!) If you do that, use fish broth (dashi) instead of water, or add 2 Tbsp of fish sauce to the water.
ps. Shortcut: Amazon has an Okonomiyaki Kit on sale, and a good deal when you buy the kit, a bottle of okonomi yaki sauce, and a bottle of Kewpie mayonnaise all together.
