Okonomiyaki

When I was a teenager I was obsessed with the anime Ranma 1/2. One of my favorite characters, Ukyo, is an okonomiyaki chef. I had never heard of this dish before but it looked good in the anime, so I decided to learn to make okonomiyaki at home. Back then the results were pretty bad - I ended up with a plain, bland cabbage pancake. This was before the internet, so I had no readily available way to look up a recipe and learn the correct ingredients. 

Fast forward twenty three years and I've enjoyed real okonomiyaki many times at various izakaya. Leah and I were thinking about making something different for dinner one night, and the idea just popped into my head. With online shopping at our fingertips, we were able to easily procure the necessary ingredients and condiments, i.e. okonomiyaki flour, dashi, tenkasu, aonori, okonomi sauce, and bonito flakes. We didn't buy kewpie mayo because our Sir Kensington's is already much tangier than typical American mayo. 

I was also able to look up the proper technique for cooking the dish, i.e. laying strips of pork belly (or bacon) over the top while it cooks on one side, then flipping to render the bacon, and then flipping again to let the first side cook a few moments longer in the rendered pork fat. I'm happy to say that these came out identical to the taste at our favorite izakaya, so after almost two and a half decades, I can say I've accomplished my goal of making authentic okonomiyaki at home.