By Yoshi | Japan Unveiled
There is a specific argument that has been running in Japan for approximately as long as both dishes have existed, and that shows no signs of resolution, and that I am now going to enter carefully, having spent decades on this earth consuming both preparations with great enthusiasm.
The argument: which is better, Osaka okonomiyaki or Hiroshima okonomiyaki?
Before I tell you my position, let me tell you something about the nature of the argument itself. In Japan, food identity is regional identity. The specific dishes that a city or a region claims as its own are not merely culinary preferences — they are expressions of cultural belonging, of local pride, of the specific character that a place has developed over time and that its food expresses more directly than almost anything else. When an Osaka person tells you that Osaka okonomiyaki is superior to Hiroshima okonomiyaki, they are not merely expressing a preference about pancakes. They are expressing something about who they are and where they come from.
The same is true, in a slightly different register, of takoyaki — the octopus ball that is the other great gift of Osaka to Japanese food culture. Takoyaki is not merely a street food snack. In Osaka, takoyaki is an identity claim, a source of civic pride, and the specific food that Osaka people most reliably point to when asked to explain what is distinctive and excellent about their city’s food culture.
Let me explain both dishes in detail, and then I will give you my position on the great okonomiyaki question.
Takoyaki: The Ball That Built a City’s Identity
Takoyaki (たこ焼き) — literally “octopus cooking” or “baked octopus” — are small spherical balls of wheat flour batter containing a piece of cooked tako (octopus), tenkasu (tempura scraps), beni shōga (red pickled ginger), and green onion, cooked in a specific cast-iron pan with hemispherical moulds.
The invention is attributed to a specific person in a specific place at a specific time: Tomekichi Endo, a street food vendor from the Namba area of Osaka, who is credited with creating the modern takoyaki format in 1935. Endo reportedly adapted the preparation from a similar dish called akashiyaki — egg-rich balls from Akashi in Hyogo Prefecture that are eaten dipped in dashi — by simplifying the batter and adding octopus as the primary filling.
The specific Osaka context that made takoyaki’s development possible: Osaka has long had the highest per-capita octopus consumption in Japan, reflecting the city’s proximity to the specific octopus fishing grounds of the Seto Inland Sea and the specific Osaka taste preference for the specific flavour and texture of cooked octopus. The takoyaki’s choice of octopus as its defining ingredient was not arbitrary — it reflected what was available, what was affordable, and what the Osaka palate valued.
The Technique: Why Takoyaki Is Harder Than It Looks
The specific craft of takoyaki production — the technique of creating a perfectly spherical ball with a specific crispy exterior and a specific molten, almost liquid interior — is considerably more demanding than its street food status suggests.
The specific pan: the takoyaki pan is a cast-iron (or, in contemporary production, carbon-steel or non-stick) plate with hemispherical moulds of approximately 4 to 5 centimetres in diameter. The pan is heated over high heat and oiled with a specific brush — the oil must be applied to every part of the mould surface to prevent sticking. The batter is poured into the moulds when the pan is very hot, filling each mould completely and overflowing slightly.
The specific technique: as the batter begins to set on the exterior, the takoyaki is rotated — using a specific pointed pick — 90 degrees, so that the uncooked batter on the top flows downward into the space now exposed. This rotation is repeated several times across the cooking process, with each rotation turning the takoyaki further toward its final spherical shape. The skilled takoyaki maker performs this rotation with specific efficiency and speed, managing multiple takoyaki simultaneously across a pan of twelve, sixteen, or thirty-two moulds.
The finished takoyaki: a golden sphere, crispy on the outside, soft and almost molten on the inside, with the piece of octopus visible when the ball is bitten into. It is served immediately — the outside loses its crispness within minutes — in a paper tray or boat, with the standard finishing combination of takoyaki sauce (a thick, sweet-savoury sauce similar to Worcestershire sauce), Japanese mayonnaise in a zigzag pattern, dried bonito flakes (katsuobushi) that move in the heat rising from the balls, and dried green seaweed (ao nori).
The Takoyaki Economy: How Osaka Eats Its Pride
The specific place of takoyaki in Osaka’s food economy is worth examining, because it is genuinely unusual in the Japanese food landscape.
In most Japanese cities, the street food that is most strongly associated with the city exists primarily as a festival or tourist food — something encountered at specific events and in specific tourist-oriented shopping areas. In Osaka, takoyaki is a regular, everyday food that Osaka people eat routinely, not merely as tourists or festival-goers but as a standard part of their weekly food rotation.
The specific density of takoyaki shops in Osaka — particularly in the Dotonbori area, in the Shinsekai district, and in the various covered shopping streets that characterise the city — is extraordinary. Major chains such as Gindaco, Wanaka, and Aizuya operate at multiple locations across the city, alongside the independent takoyaki stalls that are the original and, for many Osaka people, the definitive form.
The takoyaki is also, in Osaka, a home cooking project in a way that it rarely is in other parts of Japan. Many Osaka households own a takoyaki ki (takoyaki machine) — the specific electric appliance for home takoyaki production — and the specific domestic gathering around the takoyaki machine, with each person cooking their own balls and customising their own toppings, is a specific form of Osaka social life that is genuinely distinctive.
Okonomiyaki: The Pancake That Contains Everything
Okonomiyaki (お好み焼き) — the name translates approximately as “cook what you like” or “grilled as you like it,” from okonomi (preference, what you like) and yaki (grilled, cooked) — is the Japanese savoury pancake that is simultaneously a street food, a restaurant dish, a home cooking project, and one of the most fiercely contested regional food identity claims in Japan.
The basic preparation: a batter of wheat flour, egg, dashi, and yam (nagaimo — the mountain yam that provides the specific fluffy texture that good okonomiyaki achieves) is mixed with shredded cabbage and a chosen protein (pork belly, seafood, mixed), then cooked on a flat iron griddle until set and lightly charred on both sides, and finished with okonomiyaki sauce, Japanese mayonnaise, katsuobushi, and ao nori.
This is the basic preparation. The regional variations on this basic preparation are where the specific character of Japanese food regionalism becomes most visible and most contentious.
Osaka vs. Hiroshima: The Great Okonomiyaki Question
The two dominant regional styles of okonomiyaki — the Kansai/Osaka style and the Hiroshima style — are different enough in their preparation and their eating experience to constitute genuinely different dishes despite sharing the same name.
Osaka style (大阪風 / 関西風). In the Osaka/Kansai style, all ingredients — the batter, the cabbage, the protein — are mixed together before cooking. The mixture is poured onto the griddle as a single unit and cooked as a cohesive whole. The result is an integrated, unified pancake in which all ingredients are distributed throughout and are inseparable from each other. The nagaimo in the batter makes the Osaka okonomiyaki specifically fluffy — lighter and more airy than a simple flour-and-egg batter would produce. The exterior is slightly charred; the interior is soft and cohesive. The eating experience is straightforwardly satisfying: a unified flavour, a consistent texture, the protein distributed throughout.
Hiroshima style (広島風). In the Hiroshima style, the ingredients are not mixed — they are layered. A thin crepe of batter is cooked first, then topped with a large mound of dry cabbage and bean sprouts, then a specific quantity of thin pork slices, then more batter poured over the top. The entire structure is flipped. Then, in a separate part of the griddle, noodles — either yakisoba or udon — are stir-fried and placed as a layer, and the flipped okonomiyaki structure is placed on top of the noodles. Finally, a fried egg is cooked and the entire assembly is placed on top of the egg.
The Hiroshima style okonomiyaki is architecturally complex — it has layers, each with its specific character, that the fork or the spatula encounters in sequence as the eating proceeds. It is also substantially larger than the Osaka version, incorporating the noodle layer that the Osaka version does not use. The eating experience is different: more varied texturally, with the distinct character of each layer providing a different sensation, more filling because of the noodle content.
My position, which I offer with the understanding that reasonable people disagree: both are excellent. The Osaka style is more elegant and more integrated; the Hiroshima style is more complex and more substantial. The question of which is superior depends entirely on what you are looking for at the specific moment of eating. I have never eaten either and wished I had ordered the other.
The Monjayaki Interlude: Tokyo’s Answer
Tokyo, not wanting to be entirely left out of the flour-and-cabbage-on-a-griddle conversation, has developed its own preparation: monjayaki (もんじゃ焼き) — a much thinner, runnier preparation that forms a specific crispy crust on the griddle rather than a substantial pancake.
The specific monjayaki technique: the solid ingredients (cabbage, various proteins and vegetables) are cooked on the griddle first, then pushed into a ring formation, and the much-thinner-than-okonomiyaki batter is poured into the centre of the ring. As the batter sets, it is mixed with the solid ingredients and spread thinly across the griddle, forming a thin, lacy preparation that is eaten by scraping it directly from the griddle with small metal spatulas.
Monjayaki is less visually impressive than okonomiyaki and produces a specific eating experience that takes some adjustment — the runny batter, the specific scraping technique, the different texture of the final result. But it has its own specific pleasure: the concentrated, slightly caramelised flavour of the thin preparation, the specific crispy edges, the specific communal scraping of the griddle surface.
The Tsukishima area of Tokyo — a specific neighbourhood on a small island in the Sumida River — is the historic centre of monjayaki culture, with dozens of monjayaki restaurants on a single street. It is worth visiting specifically for the monjayaki if you are in Tokyo, because it is the one specifically Tokyo-origin food preparation that has no equivalent elsewhere.
— Yoshi 🐙 Central Japan, 2026
Enjoyed this? You might also like: “Street Food in Japan: The Best Things to Eat While Walking” and “Japanese Street Food Festivals: The Ultimate Guide to Matsuri Food” — both available on Japan Unveiled.
