Sometimes a place grabs you. As soon as you exit the gates of its station it screams with character. It invites you in. Welcomes you like an old friend. This was Hiroshima to me.
I can’t lie and say I wasn’t a little apprehensive about visiting. Of course I wanted to visit and felt I had to, really. Now I would say it is a must see place. It is beautiful, it is inspiring, the people are friendly and the food. Oh, the food. There’s no better way to really get to know a city than to try its local delicacies. And in the case of Hiroshima, you don’t have to go far to be introduced to its meibutsu, okonomiyaki.
Okonomiyaki is an experience. Literally it translates to “anything you like grilled.” It’s often called a “Japanese pancake” or “Japanese pizza”, which I guess we will have to settle for until we can make okonomiyaki a word in English. There are actually two schools of okonomiyaki, Osaka style which has its ingredients mixed in a batter and grilled together and there’s Hiroshima style which I will be introducing in this post. Both are delicious, both are made right in front of you at the table with almost the same ingredients, but Hiroshima style okonomiyaki is a high-skill level act.
Across from Hiroshima station is a department store and on the top floor is a floor in the dark populated only by okonomiyaki stands. Paper lanterns light the way to many different restaurants open to the hallways with small red stools lining the outsides of each kitchen. Guests choose a shop that looks good and order their okonomiyaki which is skillfully assembled on the griddle in front of them.
You can choose a couple of variations of meat or seafood, pork being typical. But if you want something really extravagant and local, and c’mon, we are traveling after all, you go for Hiroshima’s other meibutsu, oysters. Local fresh oysters are grilled directly on the hot plate before being tucked away into the center of an okonomiyaki.
Unlike Osaka style okonomiyaki, the ingredients are all grilled separately and then put together as they are cooking. First a crepe is made. Noodles are fried. Cabbage, bean sprouts and green onions are cooked. An egg is cracked directly on the hot metal surface and cooks use the back of a spatula to quickly make a round flat omelet. Between the omelet and the crepe the vegetables, meat (or seafood), and noodles are stacked together and lined up along side their fellow okonomiyaki in various stages. And somehow all of this is carefully tucked into a perfectly round package of savoriness. It is mesmerizing to watch these cooks go through each stage of the process. Once sauced and topped simply with aonori and sesame seeds it is served still on the griddle.
It was fantastic.
Instantly Hiroshima says “Welcome, make yourself comfortable. You are in good hands here.” This city certainly knows how to make an impression and that was just lunch. Already very pleased with Hiroshima, I could’ve gone home right then and not have been disappointed. But there is still more to this city, more to do and experience. So we head out to out to our next destination, the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. Along the way are canals and some quirky shops. OK, Hiroshima, you got me. You have character.
One thought on “Hiroshima Style Okonomiyaki”
It looks delicious but I would have opted for some other protein other than oysters. Did you try it with shrimp or chicken?
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