Okonomiyaki are Japanese cabbage pancakes. But these aren’t your traditional pancakes you are used to! Only a small layer of it is flour, the rest are packed with goodies such as meats, cheeses, and egg! At Chinchikurin in Sawtelle, Los Angeles, they make Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki. Okonomiyaki are composed of 11 layers:
- seaweed
- Otafuku sauce
- egg
- noodles
- pork
- bean sprouts
- green onions
- tempura crisps
- cabbage
- deep fish powder
- batter
The special style of Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki is that each ingredient is cooked as its own layer; in other words, it is its own layer! The chefs are constantly multitasking and keeping track of all the layers they are cooking at once and stacking them like pancakes! When served, it is like your very own omelette/pancake/pizza of 11 layers of deliciousness!! They eat this with a hera, Japanese for mini spatula. (Or for those cheese lovers like me, it’s like a cheese cutter)! With the hera, you have the freedom of cutting up your okonomiyaki to your liking!
There is some history to okonomiyaki. This entree evolved from a pre-war children’s snack called issenyoshoku during the World War II. This was popular during the rebuilding phase of Hiroshima; hence, named Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki. There was an okonomiyaki restaurant in front of the Genbaku Dome and foods stands making okonomiyaki everywhere!
Oh and one more thing.. The Otafuku Okonomi Sauce is the signature of okonomiyaki (not just at this restaurant, but of all okonomiyaki of all Japan)! It was founded in the early 1920s and became the core of the dish. It is not okonomiyaki without this sauce. It is made with over 20 types of spices and has a special secret ingredient: dates.
But enough about history! Let’s get to the food porn.. 😉
To start ourselves off with.. (left) Calpico Highball and (right) White Peach Highball. These were supposed to be alcoholic, but they didn’t taste like it and certainly didn’t make me feel tipsy. Weakkkk!
I felt so blessed and lucky to be seated at the bar and right in front of the cooking arena itself! We got ourselves to front row seats to the okonomiyaki cooking show! It was definately very amusing to watch them (as you can see if you check out my Youtube video at the end of this blog).
The first okonomiyaki is called the Loaded Kaisen. It is a seafood party loaded with squid, shrimp and green onions. They were very generous with the big pieces of squid and shrimp. You see that hera they tucked underneath my pancake? I used it to slice my pancake into square-ish pieces like the thin-crusted pizza from Papa Johns. haha.. If you slice neatly and separate one slice, you can see the 11 layers neatly stacked. Beautiful. It was sweet and savory at the same time, thanks to the Otafuku sauce and the seafood.
The second okonomiyaki is a signature dish of the Chinchikurin chain in Hiroshima called Chinchikurinyaki. It is a local favorite. And while it does not have pork or bean sprouts, it has a layer of ground beef mix called shioburiyaki. You get extra depth with the flavor and texture this way. Sweet and savory. The noodles are the carbs that will fill you up. Oh! You can also specify if you want the noodles to be extra crispy (kind of like Chinese crispy chow mein)? We ordered one of them to be extra-crispy, but it wasn’t all that crispy. I think all of the okonomiyaki had the same level of crispy noodles!
Oh and I forgot the kewpie mayo sauce. I drizzled it on there like a professsionnaalll 😀 It is optional if you want to drizzle more mayo on top of your okonomiyaki. Regardless, all the layers are packed with so many flavors and they all work so well together!
Look at that egg! It was so bubbly and round and firm. It is a weird egg huh? I wish I were the one to eat it..
And enjoy my amateur Youtube video! 😀
