The International Pancake House

Mickey's Okonomiyaki

Yanai City

It’s funny how sometimes in life the things you are looking for are right in front of your face. After first sampling the delightful Japanese dish okonomiyaki at a party during my first week in Yanai, I have spent many months trying to find a place that serves it, only to discover that the run-down looking shack that I pass by every morning on my way to work is a little family-run okonomiyaki joint. As a wise prophet once said, sometimes people just don’t see past the end of their nose…

Okonomiyaki is a difficult dish to describe; to some, it’s Japan’s answer to pizza, to others, it’s an Asian omelette. Really, it’s akin to neither. Literally meaning “As you like it”, okonomiyaki is a kind of hotchpotch pancake, made up of egg, cabbage, beansprouts, bacon, soba noodles and a healthy dose of barbecue-style sauce and mayonnaise. Two styles are in prevalence, and to show your own preference between Kansai style, in which everything is simply tossed together, and Hiroshima style, where each ingredient is perfectly layered, is to show a real knowledge of Japanese cuisine. With my overriding OCD, naturally I favour the Hiroshima variety.

Mickey’s is a delightful little place; seating around twelve people, and with a friendly staff of mother and daughter, serves a darned good dish. Cooking up the gargantuan meal (I may have accidentally ordered the “family size”, but nonetheless scoffed down every saucy morsel) right in from of you with the kind of care and attention one rarely sees in restaurants in the West. And at the pittance of a price, it’s a place I shall be frequenting on many walks home from now on.