NYC Okonomiyaki

Okonomiyaki (“As You Like It,” Oct. 6) was a dish that I discovered about 10 years ago when I was a manager for Sharaku, a Japanese restaurant in Manhattan. We would serve the Osaka style in our yakitori bar. The cooks would add thin slices of squid, pork and beef to the batter and cook it slowly over the grill. The pancake was topped with tonkatsu sauce, Japanese mayonnaise, mustard, thinly sliced ginger and bonita flakes. The heat from the dish would make the fish flakes wave, and some customers would be startled, thinking that we put live worms on their dish. Thank you for the okonomiyaki recipe; I will make it for my Japanese mother the next time she visits.

LOREN BLACKWOOD

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