From the castle we walked the short distance to the centre of town and found a nice restaurant for an evening meal. The pictures showed everything with a raw egg on top so we were a bit confused.
Inside we found that the tables were designed to cook the food on the table so we asked the waitress for help. We chose two dishes, one with fish and shrimps and the other with some kind of mushroom. She brought everything and then showed us how everything in the bowl was mixed together and then poured onto the cooking surface to make a sort of thick omelette.
Apart from the fish, shrimps or mushroom there was finely grated cabbage, some pickled cabbage and something which seemed a bit like puffed rice. Once cooked this latter had melted into everything and was no longer crunchy. Then there were two sauces, one with ginger and one so mild we were not sure what it was and mayonnaise as well as fine wafers of dried fish and dried seaweed.
Once this had been turned and cooked a little more we were able to eat, it was very good. In the meantime we have discovered that this is Okonomiyaki which means “whatever you want grilled”. After leaving we went a little further to get an ice-cream.
After eating that we found it was pouring with rain and in our hurry to get back to the hotel we took a wrong turning so once we did get back we were really soaked! Also there is no hairdryer to help with the drying!!
This post is an extract of my mother’s travel journal written during a tour of Japan in 2014.
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