OkonomiYumi!
November 7, 2015 4:11 PM Subscribe
How a Guatemalan chef became the owner of an okonomiyaki restaurant in Hiroshima.
Previously: A post on the blue from earlier this year that might have wet your appetite.
Previously: A post on the blue from earlier this year that might have wet your appetite.
Nice, but I have to say Osaka-style is the style for me.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:36 PM on November 7, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:36 PM on November 7, 2015 [4 favorites]
Hiroshima-style is much more of a production (and I imagine it takes more skill to do it really well), but it's also more of a pain to eat. However, I encourage everyone who goes to Hiroshima to try out the Okonomi-mura -- a four-story building full of nothing but okonomiyaki stalls. Then go to Osaka and eat some of their okonomiyaki. Really, you owe it to yourself to try the experiment.
That said, I'd eat at this guy's place, too. I'm always willing to be convinced about food.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:43 PM on November 7, 2015 [5 favorites]
That said, I'd eat at this guy's place, too. I'm always willing to be convinced about food.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:43 PM on November 7, 2015 [5 favorites]
This is an absolutely fascinating bit of longform. History and food and personal stories and culture all interwoven.
posted by CrystalDave at 4:43 PM on November 7, 2015
posted by CrystalDave at 4:43 PM on November 7, 2015
Hmm, this piece is a bit misleading with its incessant attempts to shroud Hiroshima style okonomiyaki with mystique and prestige.
Okonomiyaki is a, not pedestrian, but everyday food. It's sometimes called Japanese pizza - which is ridiculous it's nothing like pizza - but its place in the food hierarchy is similar. Even fancy pizza is not that fancy, and there are all kinds and it's predominantly a very casual food, just like okonomiyaki.
Okonomiyaki is no more or less special than lots of other Japanese dishes, it's not uniquely special and I was surprised no mention was made of that quintessential Hiroshima okonomiyaki ingredient, oysters.
Okonomimura is definitely not Japan's most popular food theme park. Characterising it as a theme park is ridiculous, it's essentially a small four storey food court with four to eight small restaurants per floor serving the same thing. These restaurants seat between eight and twenty people on average. There are theme food courts bigger and busier than this across Tokyo, and the phenomenon itself is not unusual across the parts off Japan I have been in.
Don't get me wrong, I love Japanese food and okonomiyaki in particular (more of an Osaka style man myself), but there are a lot of "Japanese food is always serious and mystical and otherworldly and taken very seriously by Japanese people and westerners couldn't possibly understand except when they do" cliches here, and a lot of exaggeration for increased drama. Those cliches are attractive because they are partly true, but they partly not. It's a bit racist, IMHO.
Japanese attitudes towards food are different than in the west, but this doesn't make them special, just different. They are also as heterogeneous as attitudes towards food in the west.
posted by smoke at 4:58 PM on November 7, 2015 [9 favorites]
Okonomiyaki is a, not pedestrian, but everyday food. It's sometimes called Japanese pizza - which is ridiculous it's nothing like pizza - but its place in the food hierarchy is similar. Even fancy pizza is not that fancy, and there are all kinds and it's predominantly a very casual food, just like okonomiyaki.
Okonomiyaki is no more or less special than lots of other Japanese dishes, it's not uniquely special and I was surprised no mention was made of that quintessential Hiroshima okonomiyaki ingredient, oysters.
Okonomimura is definitely not Japan's most popular food theme park. Characterising it as a theme park is ridiculous, it's essentially a small four storey food court with four to eight small restaurants per floor serving the same thing. These restaurants seat between eight and twenty people on average. There are theme food courts bigger and busier than this across Tokyo, and the phenomenon itself is not unusual across the parts off Japan I have been in.
Don't get me wrong, I love Japanese food and okonomiyaki in particular (more of an Osaka style man myself), but there are a lot of "Japanese food is always serious and mystical and otherworldly and taken very seriously by Japanese people and westerners couldn't possibly understand except when they do" cliches here, and a lot of exaggeration for increased drama. Those cliches are attractive because they are partly true, but they partly not. It's a bit racist, IMHO.
Japanese attitudes towards food are different than in the west, but this doesn't make them special, just different. They are also as heterogeneous as attitudes towards food in the west.
posted by smoke at 4:58 PM on November 7, 2015 [9 favorites]
and okonomiyaki in particular (more of an Osaka style man myself)
Comrade!
I'm getting an idea for a meet-up....
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:14 PM on November 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
Comrade!
I'm getting an idea for a meet-up....
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:14 PM on November 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
For what it's worth, I got all excited and went and looked up the place on tabelog, for people who are into that kind of thing. Even if you don't read Japanese there are some fun pictures that customers have uploaded to take a look at, including more of the man himself.
smoke, I hear what you're saying about the sort of "mystical orient" vibe coming out of this article (something I've complained about on MeFi before myself regarding similar writing) but I give it credit for being a bit more balanced than a lot of other terrible pieces. I think he describes the experience of a foreigner in Japan pretty accurately even if a bit dramatically, and while I got a bit eye-roll-y at his Hiroshima history vis-a-vis Hiroshima okonomiyaki philosophizing, all in all I thought he could have done worse, far worse. I think "dramatic but more-or-less accurate" sums it up, actually.
And I will be a contrarian here and state for the record that I do prefer the Hiroshima variant...the noodles really do it for me. Not that I don't love Kansai okonomiyaki as well. And Monjayaki too for that matter, although it's kinda weird and I have to be in the right mood...
posted by dubitable at 5:35 PM on November 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
smoke, I hear what you're saying about the sort of "mystical orient" vibe coming out of this article (something I've complained about on MeFi before myself regarding similar writing) but I give it credit for being a bit more balanced than a lot of other terrible pieces. I think he describes the experience of a foreigner in Japan pretty accurately even if a bit dramatically, and while I got a bit eye-roll-y at his Hiroshima history vis-a-vis Hiroshima okonomiyaki philosophizing, all in all I thought he could have done worse, far worse. I think "dramatic but more-or-less accurate" sums it up, actually.
And I will be a contrarian here and state for the record that I do prefer the Hiroshima variant...the noodles really do it for me. Not that I don't love Kansai okonomiyaki as well. And Monjayaki too for that matter, although it's kinda weird and I have to be in the right mood...
posted by dubitable at 5:35 PM on November 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
If Okonomimura is a "theme park," the Eataly is literally Disney World.
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:44 PM on November 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:44 PM on November 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
For anyone that's interested, some photos of an Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki being made that I took in none other than okonomi-mura.
1, 2, 3, 4
posted by smoke at 5:48 PM on November 7, 2015 [3 favorites]
1, 2, 3, 4
posted by smoke at 5:48 PM on November 7, 2015 [3 favorites]
Now I'm hungry!
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:53 PM on November 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:53 PM on November 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
“Jalapeños don’t belong in okonomiyaki.”
Hiroshima-style with oysters rules! Don't let those kansai bigots tell you otherwise ...
posted by oheso at 6:03 PM on November 7, 2015
Hiroshima-style with oysters rules! Don't let those kansai bigots tell you otherwise ...
posted by oheso at 6:03 PM on November 7, 2015
Cooking with Dog has you covered on how to make Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki
posted by DoctorFedora at 6:04 PM on November 7, 2015 [9 favorites]
posted by DoctorFedora at 6:04 PM on November 7, 2015 [9 favorites]
Is it possible to write about Hiroshima without writing about the splitting of atoms?
Well, yes, yes it is. The stuff about the cook and the okonomiyaki were fine, if a little "ooh, the craftsmanship of Japan" and could have been a pretty good read as just that.
posted by Ghidorah at 6:25 PM on November 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
Well, yes, yes it is. The stuff about the cook and the okonomiyaki were fine, if a little "ooh, the craftsmanship of Japan" and could have been a pretty good read as just that.
posted by Ghidorah at 6:25 PM on November 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
Doctor Fedora thanks for the reminder about Cooking With Dog. My dad loved food and cookingn and Japan and he thought those damn videos were some of the funniest shit he'd ever seen.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 6:31 PM on November 7, 2015
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 6:31 PM on November 7, 2015
Great, now I want okonomiyaki.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 7:08 PM on November 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 7:08 PM on November 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
Me too. I've been told mine is pretty good. I use bacon instead of those pork strips and I always do shrimp. So it's pretty much white guy Osaka style okonomiyaki. But the one guy that told me that who actually knew what to compare it to prefers monjayaki, which is pretty nope IMO.
posted by Hoopo at 8:57 PM on November 7, 2015
posted by Hoopo at 8:57 PM on November 7, 2015
People who prefer monjayaki to anything are suspect, not to be trusted. Not only does it look like that* it pretty much tastes exactly like it looks, and the best bits are supposed to be the ones that are charred beyond actually noticing the flavor.
*In polite discussion of food, it's not seemly to accurately describe what monjayaki looks like. But yeah, that bad.
posted by Ghidorah at 1:52 AM on November 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
*In polite discussion of food, it's not seemly to accurately describe what monjayaki looks like. But yeah, that bad.
posted by Ghidorah at 1:52 AM on November 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
> Not only does [monjayaki] look like that*
The anime Gintama censors it. (Which is both the joke, and a joke playing on another joke, because after a few hundred episodes everything becomes a callback to a previous joke.)
posted by ardgedee at 6:11 AM on November 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
The anime Gintama censors it. (Which is both the joke, and a joke playing on another joke, because after a few hundred episodes everything becomes a callback to a previous joke.)
posted by ardgedee at 6:11 AM on November 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
We sometimes have it for dinner. The kids like it (as does my mom, who won't touch most Japanese food) but I have no idea what style my wife makes. When we're in Japan I sometimes suggest to my wife that we take the kids out to an okonomiyaki shop but she always says "now why the HELL would I pay good money for something I could make in about five minutes at home???"
So, I've only been to three actual okonomiyaki shops over the past 20 years. Each time the dude running the shop had a punch perm. It's also kind of hot and smelly in the shops...
posted by Nevin at 8:34 AM on November 8, 2015
So, I've only been to three actual okonomiyaki shops over the past 20 years. Each time the dude running the shop had a punch perm. It's also kind of hot and smelly in the shops...
posted by Nevin at 8:34 AM on November 8, 2015
If ramen occupies the same effective spot in the Japanese psyche as pizza does for Americans, as curry does for macaroni and cheese, then what would okonomiyaki be most comparable to?
I second the "never trust anyone who likes monjayaki" but prefer to expand it to "never trust anyone who prefers Tokyo to Osaka"
posted by DoctorFedora at 7:22 PM on November 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
I second the "never trust anyone who likes monjayaki" but prefer to expand it to "never trust anyone who prefers Tokyo to Osaka"
posted by DoctorFedora at 7:22 PM on November 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
If Ramen=burgers, curry=mac & cheese, then probably (especially because of the wide variety of innards) okonomiyaki=burritos, or something like it.
posted by Ghidorah at 8:23 PM on November 8, 2015
posted by Ghidorah at 8:23 PM on November 8, 2015
"Innards" might not be the best word. Maybe "ingredients" or "toppings" or something that sounds less like organs?
posted by DoctorFedora at 8:32 PM on November 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by DoctorFedora at 8:32 PM on November 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
I would say "ramen = pizza, curry = burrito, and okonomiyaki = mac & cheese or meatloaf"
posted by Bugbread at 2:24 AM on November 9, 2015
posted by Bugbread at 2:24 AM on November 9, 2015
DoctorFedora: "I second the "never trust anyone who likes monjayaki" but prefer to expand it to "never trust anyone who prefers Tokyo to Osaka""
As anyone can attest, I am the kinda guy who will cut your throat and steal your wallet at the slightest provocation.
posted by Bugbread at 2:25 AM on November 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
As anyone can attest, I am the kinda guy who will cut your throat and steal your wallet at the slightest provocation.
posted by Bugbread at 2:25 AM on November 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
Presenting your B-Kyu Gourmet trend of 2016: ホルモンお好み焼き! Harami, shiro, mino stuffed okonomiyaki. I'm gonna be rich.
posted by Ghidorah at 8:34 AM on November 9, 2015
posted by Ghidorah at 8:34 AM on November 9, 2015
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