t’s referred to, variously, as a Japanese pancake or a Japanese omelette. The gloriously named (and tricky to pronounce!) Okonomiyaki loosely translates as ‘however you like it, grilled’ and is a popular street food native to both Osaka and Hiroshima, consisting of a wheat-flour batter to which ingredients like cabbage, meat or seafood are added then cooked on a flat grill, with toppings such as bonito, pickled ginger, mayonnaise.
Japanese Kitchen serves these gorgeous things up for breakfast at the farmers’ markets, although, chef-owner Takayuki tells me, they are usually eaten for lunch or dinner. ‘It’s probably because we use eggs’, he suggests, so similarities to fritters are understandably drawn. It’s not only eggs, however, that make Taka’s Okonomiyaki special – and especially delicious. The batter has been fermented, unheard of in Japan. Taka tells me that ‘at food festivals I’d eat it – it was too doughy.’ He wanted to recreate this savoury dish but render it a lot healthier than it traditionally is, so started making it with the same culture as the bread they make. ‘It’s just like a sourdough’, he explains. ‘The gluten breaks down during the long fermentation – it turns out so well! The dough is so melty!’
The other hugely popular breakfast they offer is also healthy and also all about fermentation. The Hakko boxes –‘hakko’ means fermentation – consist of mixed rice with grains and beans, pickles and tempeh and miso eggplant. Meanwhile, Taka is currently experimenting with what he describes as a ‘bread-ish rice bread.’ Utilising rice instead of rice flour, he’s not completely satisfied yet but is foreseeing the future wherein it’s offered as toast. ‘It would be really good with butter and honey!’ Of this I have no doubt: something magical happens at this market stall – and indeed at the ‘mothership’ Doma, in Federal.
The Japanese Kitchen is at Mullumbimby every Friday from 7 – 11am
Victoria Cosford
