It is sometimes called pizza and sometimes called pancakes and sometimes called pizza pancakes, but it is not those things. It is batter, covering meat and cabbage, and sometimes noodles, and meat, fried and topped with “sauce”, mayonnaise, and very, very thin slices of dried fish.

All these things together do not sound particularly appetizing to me, but they most certainly are as the whole transcends the sum of it’s parts.

The name means Fried As You Like It. I recommend telling the person taking your order “Buta okonomiyaki, modan kudasai.” That means Okonomiyaki with pork mean and fried on top of noodles. When my metabolism was higher, I also asked for, “mochi iri”. Mochi is highly glutenous rice pounded into a single mass, which is then cut up and added to the okonimiyaki.

Okonomiyaki requires some serious chop stick skills, but the ears of the people in the shops are listening for the sound of breaking chopsticks and they will have a new set for you within seconds of breaking yours. This is oddly specific because it happened to me. They may offer you a fork and knife. That is actually how I eat it at home when my wife makes it, but in shops, I use chop sticks because I can.

I don’t have a shop to recommend. Put okonomiyaki into google maps and try the one nearest you. I have not had bad okonomiyaki, except in Hiroshima, which is a nice city, but their version of okonimiyaki does not deserve the same name.

Osaka okomiyaki is similar to nothing and uniquely Japanese, and wonderful.