I just spent a good half hour calling up EVERY Japanese
restaurant listed in the phone book for my area of Manhattan.
Only ONE of them serves okonomiyaki, and THAT'S on special
order (they don't actually have it on the menu). Is there
any particular reason why this is so hard to find? From
the way it's talked about in Ranma 1/2, I had the impression
that it was a rather common food...

-Christopher Willmore

Well, **as I understand the context of the dish**, Okonomiyaki is something
of a specialty dish - in that context, (as well as appearance) it is
something like pizza - Pizza is simple enough to make, but you don't get it
outside of a pizza joint very often.

Okonomiyaki bars often feature a long counter with an equally long griddle
behind it, and the Okonomiyaki (literal translation is something like "as
you like it cooking (grilling) [sic]) is prepared specifically to order,
right in front of the customer.

Therefore, presentation, not only of the finished food, but of the
*preparation* is all a part of the okonomiyaki experience.

If you are interested, I have about a half a dozen different recipes for
okonomiyaki - and by definition, just about any variation is legal.  ^_^

Hope that helps!

Ja ne!

[Ukyou-sama rules!]

Zen-


***************************************************************************
[[                  James Bateman (Otaku@nashville.com)                  ]]
[[ -The experiment has begun - A million monkeys at a million keyboards- ]]
[[                     ^_^ We call it the UseNet ^_^                     ]]
***************************************************************************