“Okonomiyaki” – The Art of Sharing A Hot Plate or “Cooked How You Like It”
Published: December 24, 2019
Okonomiyaki, along with Ramen and Sushi, is one of the archetypal dishes of Japan, and is sometimes referred to as a Japanese pancake or pizza. With “okonomi” translating as “how you like it”, the dish consists of batter and cabbage with a wide variety of ingredients and toppings added. Cooked at the table on a hot plate, it has a huge following.
In Sumiyoshi 1-chome, a short walk from exit A1 of Sumiyoshi Station, you will find Okonomiyaki Suginoko occupying the 2nd floor of the Sugiura Building. This long-established restaurant is run by Mrs. Takako and Mr. Shogo Sugiura, a delightful couple in their 70s. Mrs. Sugiura is a cheerful, no-nonsense person who has been making okonomiyaki for over 40 years and is happy to chat about the food and the history of the area. Her role is to prepare the ingredients for the restaurant’s main dishes of okonomiyaki, monjya (a more liquid version of okonomiyaki) and butter yaki or teppanyaki (food grilled on a hot plate), whilst her husband is the self-proclaimed dish washer and drinks server.
The restaurant has a welcoming, homely feel, with its toys and kids’ slippers, and old-fashioned Regulator clock on the wall, and has seating at both regular and low tables (see photographs below). The restaurant is open in the evenings from 4:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., Friday through Monday, serving the local Sumiyoshi community, and is a particular favourite with couples and families who have lived in the locale for years, and regularly sees three generations of grandparents, children and grandchildren clustered around a table, all tucking into the traditional food cooking away on the hot plate sunk into its centre.
The Sugiuras also cater to groups of middle and senior high students, offering a 2 hour all-you-can-eat course for 2,000 yen per person, although Mrs. Sugiura plays the strict “den mother” and says, with a chuckle, that she forbids the use of video games whilst the kids are eating.
Okonomiyaki Suginoko’s menu is vast, running to 23 varieties of okonomiyaki, 27 types of monjya and 21 kinds of teppanyaki, but Mrs. Sugiura says that the most popular meal is Buta Ten, which consists of the basic okonomiyaki batter dish with a topping of thinly sliced pork.
And if you are not too sure how to cook your okonomiyaki on the hot plate, not to worry: using his pc, Mr. Sugiura has prepared a simple explanation in Japanese and English. . . ,
whilst his wife is happy to show customers how it is done; which is just what she did for us.
Starting with the hot plate, Mrs. Sugiura greased it before frying the pork on it. Then taking a bowl full of the basic okonomiyaki ingredients consisting of flour batter, shredded cabbage, water (no “dashi” or soup, unlike some restaurants – she relies on the other ingredients to give it taste), “agedama” (scrumptious, crunchy pieces of deep-fried dough), “kiri-ika” (sliced dried squid), pickled ginger, topped off with raw eggs. . . ,
she stirred the eggs into the rest of the ingredients, and poured the resulting mixture over the frying pork, pushing it all into a round mound. . . ,
before adding a generous sprinkling of “aonori” (powdered seaweed).
She then turned the whole mixture over to ensure that both sides were properly cooked, and that the pork was now on the top side.
The top surface was then coated with tonkatsu sauce and a sprinkling of bonito flakes was added.
And, lo! the okonomiyaki was ready to eat.
The batter was light and not chewy and the whole mixture was very tasty. Mrs. Sugiura says the secret to a good, light okonomiyaki is in the mixing: to make sure enough air gets into the mixture to make it fluffy. We sat there chatting away and nibbling at our okonomiyaki, and all the while the iron plate kept it hot for us.
And to go with the okonomiyaki why not try a drop of sake? Okonomiyaki Suginoko has its own-label sake, produced in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, and the elegant blue bottle is adorned with a delightful cartoon image of a waitress (a young Mrs. Sugiura?) cooking okonomiyaki over a hot plate.
I could have stayed sitting there listening to Mrs. Sugiura relating tales about the old days in Sumiyoshi, whilst savouring my okonomiyaki, but that will have to wait until another time, as I regretfully had to leave and return to work.
Story and photographs by Jeremy Hutchinson
