Finding Okonomiyaki in Columbus

One of my best vacation memories happened in Japan almost six years ago, when we were visiting friends who lived in Hiroshima at the time. They took us to a restaurant that we never would have found on our own, and we sat around the grill eating okonomiyaki. We ate a lot of new foods during that trip, but that was probably the best.

Since then, I've tried to find a place that recreated the okonomiyaki I remember from then. We found one place in New York City, in the East Village. It tasted similar, and it was cooked in the Hiroshima-style, with the layers of cabbage and toppings piled high, almost like a warm salad. After we ate there once or twice, the restaurant shut down.

I was excited to find one place in Columbus that served okonomiyaki, and we finally tried it last month. Unfortunately, it was made in what I understand to be the Osaka style. It was pretty much a savory pancake. (In my head, I think of it as Kyoto style -- we had it in the train station there, and I remember it pretty much being like pizza.)

Nevertheless, ZenCha Tea Salon was good. The okonomiyaki was filled with vegetables and topped with your choice of protein (I got tofu), along with a type of mayo and sweet sauce. While it was fun to fulfill my okonomiyaki fix, the real star of the show was the tea of the day: an iced rose latte. I don't drink much tea, and I drink absolutely no coffee (yuck), so I don't know much about them. In fact, I thought that latte referred exclusively to a type of coffee. My bad. The rose latte sample the server brought to the table was delicious and is worth a trip back to ZenCha on its own.

So maybe the okonomiyaki wasn't exactly what I was hoping for, but I'll be back for the rose latte. And maybe next time, the blueberry lavender pancake.

Okonomiyaki: Finding Hiroshima in NYC

It had been 14 months since I'd eaten okonomiyaki, and I was craving it.

We were introduced to the dish during our vacation to Japan in 2009, and I ate it twice. The first time was in Kyoto, where I had what I later found out was Osaka-style okonomiyaki. Okonomiyaki is often described as a Japanese pancake, but the Osaka-style seems more like a Japanese omelet.

In the Hiroshima style, which I enjoyed much more, the ingredients are instead layered high atop cabbage and include noodles. It's delicious.

And, in New York, rare.

Okonomiyaki is served in several restaurants in New York, but from my internet research it seems to be almost exclusively the Osaka style. Finally I found Go Japanese Restaurant.

One of my best memories from the entire trip to Japan is when our friends Gail and Joe took us to an okonomiyaki restaurant they frequented in Hiroshima. The food was delicious, but half the fun was watching the cook combine the ingredients on the giant grill in front of you. No such luck here. A reviewer on Yelp said that way back when, Go was a "traditional Hiroshima okonomiyaki restaurant" with a "cook from Hiroshima who sat in the window and cooked on the spot." Now the okonomiyaki is at the bottom of the menu and cooked out of sight.

No matter. It was still tasty, even if I didn't get the show with my dinner. And, I'm proud to say, I ate the entire meal with chopsticks, no small feat since I'm pretty sure I still don't hold them correctly.

The meal was only $8.50 -- a terrific deal for such a large portion, especially in the student-and-tourist mecca of St. Marks Place in the East Village. I'll definitely be returning.

The Joys of Flying with the Japanese

I've never flown on a holiday before.

If all goes well, I'll be in Columbus tonight in time for a late supper. If all goes badly, I'll be one of those stranded passengers bad-mouthing the airlines on the 11 o'clock news.

I'm nervous about the lines and delays, but I'm excited, too. I like to fly. And I especially like to fly Delta, which passes out delicious Biscoff cookies instead of puny bags of peanuts. Oh, and since it's just a puddle-jumper that flies from New York to Columbus, I get a window/aisle seat. The best.

I was not so lucky flying to and from Japan. On the way there, I had the middle seat in the middle section of the row, and Paul was three seats over and across the aisle. I'd never spent 14 hours being able to see but not speak to him. On the way back, we got to sit next to each other, but he was the one blessed with the aisle seat.

We flew a Japanese airline, ANA, which was a good choice. Vacation seemed to start as soon as we boarded the plane since the announcements were first in Japanese and then in English. And the flight attendants bowed, just as they did in Japan itself.

The food wasn't half bad (noodles, curry rice, scallops), and the green tea was plentiful. We got warm towels to wipe our hands before every meal. I'd like to see United match that.

I got called "madam" twice by a flight attendant on the way home.

Best of all, the immigration line when we got back to the States was extremely short since American citizens had a special line, and our full flight was almost all Japanese.

But ANA didn't have Biscoff cookies.

Merry Christmas!

Japan: Final Thoughts & Photos

Paul and I at Hiroshima Castle

We've been home nearly a full two weeks now, but it took half of that time just to get over the jet lag. In Japan, the time difference made us get up early -- the first morning there, at 5 a.m. Back in New York, I'd start to crash about 2 in the afternoon.

The 14-hour time difference was killer, but it did make me think. Of course, I've long understood the reasoning behind "it's 5 o'clock somewhere," but this trip really brought the meaning home to me. My world revolves around me. But even in my deepest sleep, someone somewhere is awaking for work, eating their lunch, and, yes, going out for a few drinks.

And so the world gets smaller.

This'll be my last post about Japan. I promise. I think. If you're not my mom or dad, thanks for putting up with them and reading along. And if you are my mom or dad, by this time you must be used to putting up with me, so thank you for reading along.

To close, a few final photos that didn't seem to fit anywhere else:

Tokyo: Ueno Park

Miyajima: The World's Largest Rice Spoon!

Tokyo: Shibuya- The World's Busiest Intersection

Tokyo: Ebisu

Kyoto: Paul After Our First Ride on a Shinkansen (Bullet Train)

Mt. Fuji from the Airplane, Hiroshima to Tokyo

Tokyo: I Saw Tanuki on My Very First Day!

An Obsession with Japanese Vending Machines

I just told Paul that I was in the process of writing a post about the vending machines of Japan, and I asked if he had anything to add.

"Just that they're awesome," he replied, pausing for a beat before adding that the rest of the world should aspire to Japan's level of accessibility and convenience.

There's no doubt that the vending machines in Japan are both accessible and convenient. You could be in seemingly the remotest part of town, and you'd still be a stone's throw from a vending machine-- or more likely, a row of vending machines.

Japan's vending machines aren't like those in America. Japan has so many more options. Cold drinks, hot drinks, coffee, even beer ... how can you ever choose? So at first Paul stuck with the tried and true: an all-American Coca-Cola.


It didn't take long to branch out. Our hotel had a short hallway filled with soup, pop and beer available for a few coins.

He didn't get the soup.

And, of course, Paul had to sample the coffee purely because it was endorsed by Tommy Lee Jones. Says Paul: "I'll now know him as the "Boss" forevermore. He's an example to salarymen everywhere."


There was more fun to come. In Kyoto, Paul got the side-eye from three teens or twenty-somethings when he paused to take a photo of a vending machine selling batteries.


And in Hiroshima, Joe introduced Paul to two more drinks. One literally had hunks of grape gelatin inside, and you had to shake the can before consuming. Another was a red bean soup-drink, with big globs of the beans inside. Paul thought it was disgusting, but I thought it was rather tasty. Although it was annoying to get those last few beans through the lip of the can.

Still, we weren't even close to sampling everything Japan's vending machine's had to offer. Who doesn't want "50 lemons' worth of Vitamin C in every can"?

Okonomiyaki and Other Food I Can't Pronounce

I acquired my love of sushi and tempura years ago. In fact, Paul and I went to a sushi restaurant on our first date, so it always brings back good memories.

But girl cannot live on sushi alone, even in Japan. I tried tons of food that I'd never had before, and only a little that I will never try again.

First of all, a sight I came to love in Japan:


Soft serve ice cream! These giant cones seemed to be everywhere. And as you can see, they generally weren't advertising vanilla, strawberry or chocolate. My favorite was the green tea soft serve. I've had regular green tea ice cream once at a Thai place in our neighborhood, but it wasn't the same. This was much sweeter.


Paul liked the black sesame soft serve, which I thought tasted absolutely disgusting. The purple potato flavor wasn't bad, though.

Purple potato (left) and black sesame ice cream

Ice cream shops were far from the only places that served green tea-flavored concoctions. Green tea in Japan is like water in the U.S.-- it was automatically served at almost every meal. I came to look forward to it -- especially my morning cup at our hotel in Tokyo.

So needless to say, if I saw something green tea flavored, I was bound to try it. My favorite: Japanese dumplings made from rice flour and green tea (at least that's what the English sign said). Unfortunately, Paul liked them too, so I had to share.


One morning in Kyoto we picked up breakfast at the train station at a place that looked like the Japanese version of Au Bon Pain. Our meal:


My green tea pastry was filled with cream. Paul's pastry was filled with a hot dog. This seemed to be popular. Even McDonald's was advertising a "McHotDog MegaSausage."

In Hiroshima, I knew I had to have a Momiji Manju, a specialty of the area. It's basically a maple leaf-shaped cookie-cake filled with any number of flavors. I tried the green tea there, and the chocolate and red bean paste ones at home. All equally tasty.


Red bean paste was an unexpectedly delicious dessert. Vastly underused in America, I think.

Other surprises: my love of eel. Yummy! And miso soup for breakfast: Much more satisfying than plain old cereal. Oh- and fried oysters. I had those twice. And actually, I didn't think the squid was so bad either.

Squid on a stick.

Most of the time we knew what we were eating-- fish, rice, soba, udon. Needless to say, my chopsticks skills have vastly improved. At least most of the food makes it to my mouth instead of dropping on the table. But there's still a lot of food dropped on the table. Sigh.

Sometimes we had no idea what we were eating until it was half gone. Paul chose something that looked like a savory donut at a street stand in Tokyo. It ended up having a hard-boiled egg inside.


And sometimes we only kind of knew what we were getting ourselves into.

One of my favorite meals of our entire trip came on our very last night. Gail and Joe took us to an okonomiyaki restaurant. Joe said this literally translates to "as-you-like-it pancake." An English menu we saw earlier in the trip took liberties and called it Japanese pizza. Whatever. It's terrific.

We sat right at the grill where the cook combined noodles, lots of cabbage, bacon, some spices, ingredients like cheese and corn and who knows what else. The finished meal was scooped into a personal pan (others eat it off the grill) and topped with some sort of barbecue sauce-- deep-dish Chicago pizza, Hiroshima style.

I didn't get any photos, but this site has a good description of how it's made, with pictures. I've since found out that several restaurants in New York serve it, so I'll definitely be doing a taste test.

Like usual, the food and drink was one of our vacation highlights. We had sushi at two conveyor-belt restaurants, yakitori, sake, and even fermented soybeans.

Fermented soybeans: One of the things I will not be trying again.

The Brighter Side of Hiroshima

Hiroshima was far from all doom and gloom. On our second and final full day there, Gail and Joe showed us some of the prettiest spots we'd seen throughout our entire trip.

First stop: Miyajima. After we got home, I read that Miyajima literally means "shrine-island," and no wonder. The island is famous throughout the country for the Itsukushima Shrine and the giant gate that are in the middle of the water during high tide and are surrounded by sand at low tide.

We took the ferry to the island, and Joe instructed us on where to stand for the best views and photos.


When we exited onto the island, I found out what else Miyajima is known for-- it's tame deer.


I got some more pictures of the gate at high tide, and then we went exploring. We walked through the shrine, ate (more Miyajima specialties-- oysters and a type of cream-filled cookie-cake in the shape of a maple leaf) and explored.

Paul, me, Gail and Joe

By then it was low tide. The water had nearly receded around the gate, so we climbed down a few steps and joined dozens of others to get a closer look.

Gail, Joe and Paul

On our way back to Gail and Joe's apartment, we made a stop a Mitaki, an absolutely beautiful temple and park. The leaves were changing, and it seemed to be full of surprises at every turn. Buddhas with red bibs and caps. Memorials to atomic bomb victims. Statues. Waterfalls. When it didn't feel like Japan, it almost felt like Tennessee.


Gail and Joe also introduced us to some great food. More about that -- and everything else we ate in Japan -- tomorrow.

Hiroshima and the Atomic Bomb

I can't remember exactly when I first read the book "Hiroshima" by John Hersey, but I think it must have been in my early teens.

So it's been about 15 years, but the images Hersey painted of the dying -- and even of the survivors -- of the first atomic bomb have haunted me ever since. I knew even then that if I ever visited Japan, I would have to visit Hiroshima.

So it was very convenient that our friends Gail and Joe were placed in the city as English teachers more than two years ago. I worked with Gail for four years at the Springfield News-Sun, and she's basically the reason we planned this whole trip to Japan to begin with. Not only did Gail and Joe give us a place to crash the three nights we spent in Hiroshima, but they acted as tour guide and gave us tons of suggestions of things to see in Kyoto.

We arrived in Hiroshima late on Saturday, so we didn't see much of the city until Sunday. The first stops: everything "peace."

Peace Bell

Peace Memorial Park (Atomic Bomb Dome in background)

Peace Memorial Museum

It was an appropriately gray and dreary day for such an outing, but the museum was nonetheless fascinating. I've long been interested in World War II, probably because of my Dad's tendency to watch everything war-related on the History Channel. Hearing the German on those shows was one reason that I wanted to learn the language-- I wanted to know exactly what the bad guys were saying. (The other reason: I loved "The Sound of Music." If there would've have been a musical about an Asian soprano nun who basically adopts a choir, maybe I would've majored in Japanese instead.)

I reread "Hiroshima" a week or two before we left on vacation, and I'm glad I did. I was prepared for the displays of burned clothing, stopped watches, and charred artifacts. I knew about the diseases the bomb caused, but that didn't make looking at the images any easier. Still, it was an interesting and surprisingly well-rounded look at the bomb and its impact on the city. And it even included a shout-out to Springfield for hosting an exhibit on the bomb sometime since 2007.

Of course, we also saw the Atomic Bomb Dome, the shell of a government building that was nearly directly under the epicenter of the bombing.


It was a somber first impression of Hiroshima, but it was a visit that's been 15 years in the making.

Japanese Bathroom Humor

I had never seen so many toilets with so many buttons.

Should a toilet really come with directions, as the one in our hotel in Tokyo did? I always thought it was pretty simple-- do your business, press down the handle. Oh, how wrong I was.

Here's the toilet in our Tokyo hotel:


Here's the directions:


I know it's difficult to read, but really- should any toilet have a three-step process that needs to be outlined?

Here's basically how it worked: The bowl was only partially filled with water at any given time, so a sensor noticed when someone sat down and filled the throne with more water.

After you're done it's time for the buttons: The spray or bidet. I think the photos on the buttons are pretty self-explanatory. Especially the spray one in the middle. No mistaking what that does.


I think you could also adjust the pressure of the spray and bidet. I don't know. I ignored all of these buttons and lived in fear that I would accidentally press one.

Then it was time to flush. Push the handle one way, and it was a tiny flush. For, um, larger loads, push the handle the other way and a bigger gush of water poured through.

When we went to the high-end shopping mall Tokyo Midtown, I got a whole other bathroom experience. Not only did it have a seat warmer (!), but the toilet had even more buttons.


The spray and bidet are evidently kid's play. This one included a "flushing sound" button that is exactly what it sounds like. When we got to Hiroshima, I asked Gail about this. She said women don't like to be heard on the pot. Sometimes they'll just repeatedly flush if the button isn't available. So much for the benefits of low-flow toilets.

Another perk with this toilet: a "powerful deodorizer" button.

On the other end of the spectrum: the Japanese squat toilet.


Most places had a row of squat toilets and at least one Western-style toilet, and the doors were labeled with what was in store behind it.

Readers, I used one. I used a squat toilet.

You could almost say it was by accident. I was in a bathroom with three toilets-- two Japanese style, one Western. My turn in line came up, and the only open stall held a squat toilet. I tried to let the girl behind me take my turn so I could wait for the Western-style, but she graciously motioned for me to go ahead.

So my choices were to go in the stall and (1) pretend to use it, flush and then get back in line, humiliated or (2) use it. I used it. And I'd never been so proud to use a toilet since I was about two years old.

One thing I'll say: If I were to use this style of toilet more often, I'd definitely have to work on strengthening my thigh muscles.

I'd done a little research before vacation on how to use a squat toilet just in case I was ever faced with this situation. Not everyone does, I guess. I found this sign in one of the bathrooms.