This past Friday Tim had the brilliant idea to invite his coworkers out for a night of drinks and monjyayaki. Nine of us ventured out on a 30-minute subway ride and arrived at Tokyo's famous Tsukishima monjya street. Literally all of the restaurants along this seven-block strip serve the same thing. Monjya.
Monjyayaki is Tokyo's (way better) version of okonomiyaki. Some background: okonomiyaki is similar to a pancake made of egg, cabbage, flour base, and additions of your choice: seafood, meat, cheese, etc. and usually topped with bonito and nori flakes. It is cooked in front of you on a teppan grill.
Monjyayaki's liquid base is thinner and the end product is more goopy than pancake-y. It sounds weird but it's delicious! Mentaiko is a popular type of monjya made of spicy cod roe and includes cheese and mochi. At first I thought the mochi was super strange but it gave it a nice subtle flavor and held the batter together better.
To really understand this dish, take a look at the preparation below.
Our waiter showed us how to use the small flat spoon utensil to scrape up a delicious bite.
We even got a chocolate crepe dessert. Watch the pro at work. Too bad that in the end we only got one tiny bite each. :-(