Pancakes for Dinner?

Today we arrived in Hiroshima and went to the Peace Park and the museum there. This was a very sad and somber thing to see and I think it is a place that every person should visit to be reminded of the destruction and sadness that we can wreak on each other so that as humans we learn from our mistakes and begin to figure out how to coexist in a world without warfare or nuclear weapons. It was a lot to take in and weighed heavy.

Thankfully, dinner was a lighter affair. We had heard about Hiroshima-yaki which is a local take on Okonomaki, which are the veggie and meat/seafood filled egg and wheat pancakes that we had in Tokyo. However, whereas in Tokyo the fillings are all mixed up with the batter, in Hiroshima, noodles are added to the mix, and the fillings are layers, requiring a lot of skill, attention, and speed on the grill master's part. We ordered beers and let the show begin.

These babies start out pretty innocently as rice flour pancakes.

Add bean sprouts and cabbage to that, and then some noodles and shrimp+squid in my case or bacon and cheese in others, then noodles and chopped garlic, and it's a whole new ballgame...

Then crack and beat an egg into a circle shape, flip said pancake-monster onto egg, flip again, paint monster-cake with paint brush of sweet mystery brown sauce, and top with two handfulls worth of chopped scallions, and sir, you have a meal on your hands.

I only had time and room for a beer and a sake, but something tells me that Hiroshima-yaki are a real crowd-pleaser when the bars let out...