Okonomiyaki Step by Step

It turns out that I very thoroughly photo-documented the process to making this dish, so here it is in its entirety.  Note the spatula doodad.

Step 1: The Bowl
At any okonomiyaki (don't know what okonomi means, but the yaki appears often and means grill as far as I can discern) restaurant, the whole adventure starts with the decision: what goes in your bowl?  It's similar to Subway.  Before you customize and whatever, you need a basic meat package.  For this I've gone with shrimp and squid, but they've also got chicken, pork, and beef in all sorts of combinations.  Also in the bowl will be a heavy handful of shredded cabbage with a raw egg and a dollop of batter.  Everything gets stirred thoroughly before we start.

Step 2: Shaping
After you've stirred the bowl to an even consistency and dumped it onto the grill, you have to scrape it into the pancake shape.  This is one of the ways the little spatula doodad comes in handy.

Step 3: Wait
They must cook it on pretty low heat, because it takes about 15 minutes from start to finish for the sweet rewards to be yours.  I held my hand over the flat top to confirm this, but it felt hotter than I had anticipated.  Regardless, there's a lot of waiting involved in this food.  Plenty of time for you to deal with the extra, Osaka-only step.

Step 4: Yakiudon
While you wait for the pancake to reach flipability, you can opt for the Osaka twist.  A heap of stir fried udon noodles makes a great addition texturally.

Step 5: Bonito Flakes
One of the signature parts of all okonomiyaki, these brown, translucent flakes are in fact a dried and then finely shaved fish.  Bonito flakes, when they warm, crinkle and flap like a handful of baking butterfly wings.

Step 6: Flip
Now that you have all your primary ingredients and the bottom is crisping up nicely, it's time for the flip.

Step 7: Sauce It Up
The bulk of okonomiyaki's flavor is in the sauces.  Start with a ladle full of creamy, sour Japanese mayonnaise, then add the savory, sugary eel sauce (like a thick, rich teriyaki).  Swirl them all together to evenly distribute.

Step 8: Enjoy
That weird spatula doodad is also great for segmenting and serving "slices" of the okonomiyaki, which is what makes it kind of like pizza.

December 26th, 2010

I'm back at the hostel, and what a day it has been.  I started off early at the train station to meet DW.  Unfortunately, it was the wrong station.  After about a half an hour of waiting for him to arrive, I decided to borrow a phone and call.  Another first: total rejection on the phone borrowing.  The girl didn't even say, "Oh, sorry.  I don't have one..."  She just gave me a blank stare and then made an 'X' with her arms.

Luckily, pay phones are super cheap.  This one cost a penny for 30 seconds, which is plenty of time to locate DW and coordinate our meeting.  We're soon together and on our way to food.  First up on the menu?  Noodles.  We keep it simple with two Japanese classics: udon, the thick noodles that came with okonomiyaki yesterday, and soba, a thinner buckwheat-based noodles.  Both were satisfying and delicious, especially for the price.

We head out from there to witness some unique architecture.  The iconic building of Osaka, the Umeda Sky Building, is essentially a pair of office buildings that are connected at the top by a glass doughnut.  Several escalator columns and hallways also span the abyss between the two towers.  Everything inside is decked out with couple sofas and photo opportunities.  In Asia, Christmas and Valentine's Day are virtually indistinguishable.

Our next goal is to see the palace of Osaka, but not before eating again.  We stop in for one of my old favorites called kaitenzushi, or sushi by conveyor belt.  This sushi bar is set up kind of like a capital 'B,' with the sushi chefs sitting inside of the letter, the customers positioned around the arcs, and the kitchen along the straight edge.  Tracing the entire "letter" is a miniature conveyor belt crammed full of sushi plates.  All you have to do is grab the plate that you want to eat, then wait until another delicious looking fish passes you.  All the chefs have to do is see what's missing on the conveyor belt and just keep things stocked.  No ordering, no waiting.  A culinary first: fatty yellowtail.

Before we make it to the palace (maybe we got lost and walked several blocks out of our way...thank goodness Japan has maps on every street corner), we again stop for food.  This time it's takoyaki.  These warm dough balls have a small piece of octopus in every bite, and a lot of sauce to boot.  Though it's available throughout Japan and even in parts of Korea, it is quite highly regarded in Osaka and for good reason.

The palace was finally within our grasp but the sudden rain deterred us.  We chose rather to duck into the museum of Osaka history.  There we learned that there are several different grind patterns that can be used when sharpening a katana blade, and that the majority of buildings in the city that are older than 100 years have either been burnt or shaken to the ground at least once.

By the time we've finished in the museum the rain has subsided.  On its exterior, gilded dragons and tiger guard its walls.  It's multiple roofs jut out impressively, adorned with brightly gilded fish.  It is perched in a garden on top of a high stone wall which towers like a man-made mountain above a murky moat.  Its gates are ominous and hewn from a wood that is near black either by nature or age.  Though distinctly Japanese, it feels as impenetrable as any good castle should.

Our first impressions of the interior are much less grand, however.  The entire castle has been gutted to make room for a sort of museum, but it is lackluster.  Then we hit the jackpot: a collection of traditional samurai armor.  The face plates were gruesome and foreboding.  The helmets were frequently crowned with stag beetle tusks or golden antlers.  My personal favorite was the black helm whose back had been affixed with long metal sunbeams that splayed out radially like some cross between a peacock's eminence and a scorpion's menace.  Pictures were strictly forbidden.

The day was capped with you guessed it, more food.  My last Osakan meal consisted of another sampling of takoyaki, a plate of chicken karage, and miso ramen.  Unlike other Japanese ramen I've had, this broth was incredibly thick.  It was as if rather than thickening water they instead opted to thin peanut butter.

I close Christmas weekend with a final pre-dawn trip to the airport.  Incheon International Airport welcomes me with yet another frightening airplane moment.  I hadn't noticed that we had exited the cloud line because everything beneath it, including the ground itself, was the exact same white out.  While I was away Korea had properly entered winter.  Touching ground was a startling turn of events, as until the turbines had begun to blown away the powder there had been no way to see that ground even existed.  I wondered whether or not there was even enough friction between our tires and the pavement for us to reach a full stop in what had over a weekend transformed into Fargo International.

Now I'm on my way back home, where language is mine and comfort abounds.  With any luck, I'll be able to snag a quick shower before I have to start teaching again.  This trip has made Japan my single most frequently visited country, at three times.  A big thanks to DW for making the four hour hike on the 4:30 train from Tokyo just to meet me for a day.  It really made my Christmas wonderful, despite the exhaustion and unfamiliarity of travel and new cities.

December 25th, 2010

Cold. And dark.  So cold that the ink from this pen is not liquid enough to steadily write these words, forcing each thought to be deliberately carved into my paper.  So dark that there is not enough light in my alley to glint off the mist which is surely billowing up from my mouth as I plod towards the subway.  That's how my Christmas morning begins.

Christmas Eve hadn't been this way.  Carols streaming on the laptop, fresh food on white and red paper plates, a tree-shaped candle: it almost had the warmth of family.  It was a special evening full of good laughs with good people.

But now it is cold and dark.  We're talking white knuckles, Russia at its bleakest.  Why am I up before the sun has taken a go at heating up this city?  It's not the whimsical hope of catching that glimpse of Santa's  boots as he exits through the chimney.  It's the 8:30 from Seoul to Osaka.

No, this is not another fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants ticket purchase, though it is already shaping up to be that kind of a weekend. I have been able, from my collection of cards, to procure no more than 30,000￥. I don't know yet what that means as far as purchasing power, but I intend to do my best. I have no Japanese skills, no other access to cash, and no plans except to meet my friend DW tomorrow and eat some of the famed, probably over-rated Kobe beef.

This is a morning of personal firsts, though none of them are yet Japan-specific. I had the pleasure of riding Seoul's new-ish express line this morning, and I flew out of Gimpo International rather than Incheon. The Asiana flight I am on is also a much smaller vessel than I've ever ridden on before. As we descend in on Japan's coast, I am coming to the realization that this equates to feeling the smallest movements of the plane much more dramatically. Making our approach on this windy, winter morning while staring out over Osaka's choppy, grey harbor, I had my first visions of plane crash in many flights.

We're low enough that the plane hits the water with most of the passengers unharmed, but the impact snaps the fuselage in half. Those icy grey, Pacific waves lap further up the isle towards me and I wonder whether my flotation device is between the seat cushions, under the seat cushions, or the seat cushions themselves.

*          *          *        *          *

The hostel is as nice as any I've stayed in. I quickly drop my things and move on to the rest of my Christmas. I take the hostel owner's advice and head over to sample a local delicacy: okonomiyaki.

Granted I'm no stranger to this dish, but Osaka puts a nice twist on it. Rather than the straight cabbage, meat, and batter pancake that I've seen before, the locals here make it double-decker. The second layer? None other than stir-fried udon noodles. A phenomenal lunch that I am simultaneously sad and satisfied to watch disappear.

When I finish, it's time to skip town for the day. Since I'm saving the majority of Osaka's see-ables and do-ables until DW arrives, I get back into the current of public transport and hitch the next train to Kobe.

*          *          *          *          *

It's only a thirty minute arc around the bay to what wikitravel dubs "one of Japan's underappreciated cities." There isn't a tourist guidebook, area map, or information counter to be seen, so I start off in a random direction.

It doesn't take long before I've run into the ocean and a whole myriad of activities. There's a tower with a bay view and a handful of ferries if you'd rather witness it up close. There's also a long strip of restaurants and shops which remind me strongly of the Pier 39 area of San Francisco. I spend some time in a memorial park dedicated to preserving the memory of one particularly devastating earthquake. The city has locked a segment of the sidewalk in time by rooting the crooked lampposts to the ground exactly as they are. It provides an almost eerie contrast to the rest of this well-groomed area.

There was a freak flash snow,
so I guess... White Christmas!

After milling about the docks for a while, I decide it is time to satisfy my ulterior motive: eating the legendary Kobe beef. My journey to a recommended location for said beef, however, leads me through a series of tunnel malls.  That is to say, underneath a length of subway rails lies a series of shops called Motoko. Each Motoko was separated from one another only when a perpendicular road needed to cross through. This meant each one was roughly a block long, and they were numbered accordingly.

I started around Motoko 3 and followed the tunnel until Motoko 7. I wouldn't have gone so far, but I was intrigued. What a random collection of stores! There is everything from goofy jewelry to fancy watches, nice clothes to 1970's electronics, action figure collectibles to religious icons, and of course none of it in any particular order. It is a lot like a block party meeting a garage sale.

With no end in sight, I peel myself away from the insanity at 7 to find that I'm tantalizingly close to Christmas dinner at Steak Land. I will eat meat from a cow nurtured with honey and massages. I will taste the sweet flesh of an animal who has lived the high life.

The chef behind the flattop is a presumably 95 year-old man. His wrinkles are deeper than my pockets, and Asians age well too. This dude is an expert at his craft. He effortlessly controls the speed at which the delicate bok choi cooks by shifting it into the exact right amount of heat. He flips multiple pieces of zucchini with a single flick of the wrist. His knife is incredibly accurate. Never once does he cut something misshapenly or in an odd number of pieces.

The vegetables are warm all the way through but still crisp. The scallop rivals the ones I ate in Charleston at a wedding rehearsal dinner, and those had been braised in duck fat. The shrimp he places on the grill was in fact still alive. I watch its tail jerks and legs scramble as its right flank turns pink. And the beef! Marbled and beautiful, I would have eaten it raw (btw try miming "rare"). There is not a piece of gristle to be found. Every bite is succulent, fat and all. It is truly sublime.

Jeonju

Experiential value is one of the primary reasons I am living here, and lately I've been lacking in local experiences.  Yesterday, I decided to change that.  Catching the first subway to the express bus terminal and then the next bus available, I and three of my friends made the way to the renowned southern city of Jeonju.

If you zoom in, you can see the contrast of the traditional roofing to the rest of the city scape.

Since it was only a day trip but the bus ride takes 2 hours, we had to limit our goals while in Jeonju.

1. Eat bibimbap, the dish of fresh veggies and rice stirred together with red pepper sauce, until we find the one style that makes this city so famous,
2. Explore the traditional  HanOk Village, which is the largest zone of the country where people still live exactly as they did hundreds of years ago, and
3. Enjoy some of the towns famous makolri, an alcoholic rice beverage.

The first place we explored after getting off the bus was HanOk village.  While it had the appearances of a traditional village, it didn't have the feeling.  The buildings looked right.  The roads were cobblestone.  The palace was like the rest.  Unfortunately, besides the architecture, the rest felt strikingly modern.  There were coffee shops, street vendors with bad knickknacks, and swanky restaurants.

The highlight of the village was the palace, where we inadvertently became a member of yet another children's field trip.  The tour guide was exceptionally welcoming, and made sure that we understood his explanations of some of the architectural features of the palace.  He also made all the children greet and bow to us.

On the edge

Before and after this village roaming, we ate bibimbap.  Prior to coming, We had heard two different rumors.  One was from fellow westerner and Korean blogger hiddentreasures.  Every time we ate bibimbap in Seoul, she reminded me that it just doesn't compare with Jeonju.  This city was legendary for having the "stir rice" to end all "stir rices."  The other rumor was from my 6th grade students, who claimed that there was nothing special to be had in Jeonju.

We first tried a back alley, local looking place.  It was sandwiched between two other clearly non-tourist restaurants and across from an elementary school, on a street that featured no other bibimbap at all.  The prices at this restaurant were absurdly cheap, the ingredients were fresh, the stew that came with was above and beyond, but the bibimbap itself was quite bland.

Not to say it didn't look delicious.

 Our second attempt, after the roaming, was at a tourist restaurant.  We figured maybe swankier was tastier.  While this one was high-quality, with such delightful features as raw steak, it was not the bibimbap to end all bibimbaps.

We decided that maybe it was best we left it that way.  While it's a bit disappointing to go to the city of bibimbap and not have the best I'll ever get, it's perhaps more disappointing to spoil an entire dish for the rest of my life.

We moved on to our third goal, the makolri.  The most notable difference between this and other rice liquors, like sake or soju, is the filtration.  Most rice-based alcohols come clear, like vodka.  Makolri, on the other hand, does not have the ground rice filtered out during the fermentation, leaving it opaque and chalky.  Think beige Pepto Bismol.  While it may take a bowl or two (it is drank from what look like rice bowls) to get used to, it grows on you.

Here, things went much as we expected they would.  The price was comparable, the flavor was identical.  There were two massive differences, though.  The first was that the makolri itself was clear, like a pale apple juice.  This was quite surprising, as the taxi driver assured us that it would not be any different than what we could find in Seoul.

The second and most satisfying surprise was that one order of makolri came complete with a spread of food.  Everything from stews to fresh fruit, boiled eggs to fried ones, clams to sweet potatoes, oysters to acorn jelly. This offset the price of the drink itself to practically free.

In the end, though neither the bibimbap nor the traditional village blew our minds, we counted the day a success.  We thoroughly enjoyed the new scenery, the adventure, and the company.