Our First Foray at Making Japanese Pizza

Steve’s colleague Jeff had invited Steve and me to dinner with him and his wife, Marilyn at this place called “Gaja Japanese Restaurant.” Apparently, Gaja is quite popular for their DIY Japanese pizza, called “Okonomiyaki.” The gist of it is that you choose the toppings (e.g. shrimp, Spam, chicken, beef, squid, fish, et al) and style of cooking - Osaka (crispy), Hiroshima (layered), and Tokyo (gooey). They give you all the raw ingredients, as well as the dough, seasoning, and cooking instructions. Then it’s up to you to create your masterpiece using the hot plate.

Since Jeff and Marilyn had eaten at Gaja several times already, we let them choose the styles of cooking (Tokyo, Hiroshima), while we chose the toppings (seafood).

Boy, was it a lot of fun! We took turns cooking each pizza over the hot plate. Despite some initial misgivings, Steve had fun creating our Tokyo pizza; and flipping it over. I wish we had pictures of our Japanese culinary experiences, but alas, we didn’t want to look like a couple of paparazzi in front of Steve’s colleagues, whose company we really enjoyed.

I “borrowed” the following photos from fellow Yelpers in order to illustrate the mode of cooking and the finished product.

p.s.
I highly recommend this place!

Raw Seafood Ingredients:










Hot plate on which to cook your pizza:


















In the words of Emeril, BAM!