Totoro, Levi, and beautiful flowers – All part of the edible world of okonomiyaki art 【Videos】

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If you’ve never had the pleasure eating okonomiyaki, you’re missing out on one of Japan’s greatest culinary treats. Sometimes referred to as “Japanese pancakes” or “Japanese pizza,” Okonomiyaki is a circular crepe filled with cabbage and other vegetables along with meat, seafood, or whatever else you want to put in it.

The whole thing gets topped with a sweet, reddish brown sauce which not only tastes great, but can also serve as a great canvas on which to create awesome-looking and edible okonomiyaki art!

While okonomiyaki always comes slathered with sauce, individual diners may or may not choose to add mayonnaise as well. But while whether okonomiyaki’s taste is better with mayo or without is a matter of individual taste, adding the creamy condiment gives you a second color to work with, and allows you to do things like this.

Given okonomiyaki’s round shape, floral patterns seem to be a natural motif for oko art, as okonomiyaki art it also known.

▼ This one looks a bit like a gerbera.

お好み焼きにマヨネーズでアートする「オコ・アート」が楽しい。 http://t.co/LnMErhRVCz
—
つるたま (@tsurumpet) August 31, 2014

If you want to work with more than one hue, mixing some food coloring in with the mayo will let you pull off okonomiyaki art like these scenes of dragonflies flittering about some leafy maple and gingko branches.

【今日のおこアート】紅葉とトンボ。窓から見える紅葉と銀杏。今年は紅葉見に行きたいです☆お好み焼は、はれのきバージョン(^^)マヨ色も淡いやさしい感じにしてみました☆ #お好み焼き　#ごっつい　#はれのき　#おこアート http://t.co/yJPIoht8Mc
—
(@gottsuitter) September 17, 2014

Japanese mayonnaise tends to be of a thicker consistency than Western varieties, and because of that, some okonomiyaki art aficionados recommend cutting it with vinegar, ideally five parts mayo to one part vinegar, to thin it out and make it easier to pull off more intricate line work. Alternatively, you can do what prolific oko artist and YouTube uploader Yumeishi TV does and lay down a layer of mayonnaise first, then draw what you want to in sauce.

▼ My Okonomiyaki Totoro

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▼ Don’t let Sasha know Levi’s been transformed into okonomiyaki. She’s liable to chow down on him like a Titan devouring a helpless villager.

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▼ Jojo is looking so cool we can hardly stand it.

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▼ Yumeishi TV even wrote in the speech bubble text for this famous quote from Slam Dunk’s Coach Anzai!

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That last video also shows off the advanced okonomiyaki art technique of using a double layer of mayonnaise to add extra shading and depth to the picture. But as uncanny as the likeness is, you probably shouldn’t let Coach himself eat his okonomiyaki portrait, since being so heavy on the mayo means the calorie count is probably pretty high too, and it’s about time the manga mentor started watching his figure.

Source: Naver Matome
Top image: Twitter/@tsurumpet (edited by RocketNews24)
Inset images: YouTube/YUMEISHI TV (1, 2, 3, 4)