Monday 12 January 2009

Fugetsu okonomiyaki

Next stop after Kyoto was Osaka. After walking in circles for a good while, we simply couldn't find the restaurant that we planned to go to in the Dōtonbori (道頓堀) area, the famous eating area where you find the famous giant Glico Man sign and giant crab, giant blowfish etc. signs. But luckily, being in the food central of Osaka, we had a few other possibilities for plan B. We had been looking forward to eating the one of the Kansai region specialities, okonomiyaki (お好み焼き), Japanese style pancake, at some point of during our Osaka visit, so we decided to try Fugetsu (鶴橋風月), which was quite near the Glico man neon sign.

For those who haven't tried the wonders of okonomiyaki, the name 'okonomi' means 'what you like' or 'what you want', and yaki meaning 'grilled' or 'cooked', and idea is a bit similar to pizza or Dutch pancakes, where you can choose a variety of toppings/fillings. There are two different styles, Hiroshima and Kansai, of which the latter is much better in my view! We had checked out the restaurant's website, which indicates that it has quite a few branches across the country and that there was a vegetarian option (only one at the time although looks from their website like there are now two).

sign outside the restaurant

Fugetsu was on the 3rd floor in this building full of other restaurants, a common (though slightly confusing) arrangement in Japan.

We were placed on one side of a very narrow booth, on seats with lids that lifted up to give much needed storage space for bags and coats. We got an English menu and picked the vegetable (carrot, pumpkin, potato, sweetcorn) option. We tried to get one without sweetcorn but while they understood the request there was a bit of trouble in communicating the answer, which eventually turned out to be that it wasn't possible (presumably the mixes are already made up). So be warned if you aren't a big fan of any of those vegetables!

Now I know 'cabbage cakes' don't look or sound particularly tasty to some (the picture below got a response from a friend, 'They dropped your coleslaw!'), and the okonomiyaki at this place seemed to have a thinner batter mixed in than we are used to; however, you don't really taste the cabbage in it all! The server cooked ours on the hot grill at our table in front of us, which is always fun to watch, but at some places you can even cook it yourself!

The raw materials

Here is the okonomiyaki almost ready...

Cooked...

The final touch is to apply the special okonomiyaki sauces, a sort of barbeque/teriyaki sauce and Japanese mayonnaise. Generally you also get bonito fish flakes dancing on top but we obviously passed on that. It actually looked just like the picture on their sign!

...and finished

Although the sweetcorn inclusion was a disappointment, it was really good and any sweetcorn taste was partly covered by the heavily applied sauces anyway. Plus prices were cheaper than we are used to from London okonomiyaki - ¥700 for standard size and ¥780 for large. The restaurant seemed quite popular and was quite full when we were there. We would have liked to try a non-chain okonomiyaki restaurant as well, but probably would take a bit more work to work out the menu or to communicate the dietary needs - hopefully next time!

Fugetsu (Dōtonbori branch)
大阪市中央区道頓堀1-9-1 ベルスードビル 3F
Tel: 06-6212-5990

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