Part 2: Japanese “food for socializing” and savory pancakes

LAST WEEK, I POSTED THE FIRST PART of this “diary” about cooking classes in Japan. In those first two classes, sushi making in Tokyo and ramen soup in Kyoto, Erin and I try our hand at familiar Japanese dishes.

In the cooking classes described below, we learn to make lesser-known dishes and are introduced to strange new ingredients.

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December 30, 2025 – Kyoto, Japanese home cooking

Our third cooking class is described as “Izakaya cooking, a variety of Japanese home dishes for passionate home cooks.” Food for socializing, Izakaya, can include various dishes to be served with drinks—anything from yakatori to sushi, salads to stews—always flavorful enough to stand up to sake or Suntory beer.

When we enter the classroom, we are instantly hopeful that this session will be on a par with the classes Erin likes to attend at Sur la Table in California. An L-shaped bar counter offers an open view of a professional kitchen. In the center, women wearing bright orange aprons are busy making final preparations.

The bar stools at the wrap-around counter already hold eager students ready to learn. Erin and I are given maroon Hapi jackets to protect our clothing and shown to the last two places. Two of the aproned women introduce themselves. I am pleased when they say they own and operate the cooking school themselves.

In fluent English, organized and confident, the teaching pair takes turns presenting dishes. They introduce ingredients strange to us but common in Japan, including rock-hard, dried bonito fish that resembles petrified wood and a bundle of long brown sticks they say are burdock root.

Soon my daughter and I are slicing and chopping, steaming and sautéing. Erin wields a sharp knife with dexterity to cut the tough woody burdock root into slivers. Wearing plastic gloves, she kneads onion and ginger into a bowl of ground pork. I grate the bonito into thin, translucent shavings, trim the stems from mushrooms, and cut carrots into julienne slivers. While we students struggle with unfamiliar ingredients and methods, the teachers come around to help.

Our menu includes a variety of dishes: Stir-fried burdock root and carrot, a salad of seaweed and lotus root, steamed pork balls, fried chicken pieces in an aromatic sauce, an Osaka-style savory pancake, and a light, citrusy gelatin. Between preparation activities, cooking dishes on a small electric burner, and two sessions of tasting, we are busy for three hours. I find the burdock root to be tough and unpleasant to chew, but everything else is flavorsome and delicious. My favorites are the meatballs surrounded by earthy mushrooms, the white, hole-filled lotus root with its sweet and salty miso dressing, and the lovely, tart yuzu-flavored gelatin dessert.

As a grand finale, we are given overflowing glasses of sake. Our teachers bow and hold their hands together in a Japanese gesture that indicates they have been happy to have us as guests.

January 9, 2026 – Hiroshima, Okonomiyaki savory pancakes

Our final class is in Hiroshima, a large and bustling city that has emerged like a phoenix from the rubble of WWII. On a crisp and clear morning, Erin and I take a bus to an industrial area. The class will be in a Hiroshima landmark, a tall, strange building shaped like an egg standing on its end.

A long, professional grill dominates the modern, light-filled classroom.

Our fellow students are mainly Japanese couples of varying ages. The class will be taught in Japanese, so Erin and I are given our own personal interpreter, a young man in a crisp white chef’s jacket.

The group is given instructions about safety around the hot surface of the grill and invited to step up to the cooking area. We students range along one side, while three instructors stand opposite us.

It is soon clear to me that Hiroshima-style Okonomiyaki is quite different from the simple, cabbage-studded pancake we prepared in the Izakaya class in Kyoto.

Here, the basic pancake mixture of flour, baking powder, and liquid is formed into a perfect circle on a hot grill, then topped with an elaborate layered structure. The teachers present each ingredient one at a time, explain what it is, and demonstrate adding it to the pancake.

First, the crepe-like base is topped with a heaping mound of shredded cabbage, a pile of beansprouts, and a scoop of crispy, tempura crumbs. Then strips of fatty bacon are added. With the help of a pair of spatulas, we flip the entire thing. As the bacon sizzles, we are given a packet of wheat noodles to heat on the griddle. When the noodles are separated and steamy, we add a couple of seasoning elements, including two green leaves of some kind. We lift the pancake structure again and place it on top of the noodles. I wonder how we can possibly manage anything higher.

But we are not finished. Two eggs are traditional, which explains the odd shape of the building. We are encouraged to open the eggs with one hand in the time-honored manner of chefs everywhere. I manage to get my eggs on the grill free of broken shell fragments. Carefully, I make the next maneuver, setting the “pancake” on top of the eggs. This thing is no longer a simple pancake but a monument to Japanese ingredients.

Each student has created their own impressive food tower on the sizzling stainless-steel grill. When fully built, our food mounds stand almost five inches tall.

Now comes the scariest part. This tower of layered ingredients must be flipped, not simply lifted and moved. Slowly, one at a time and with much encouragement, students flip pancakes while everyone watches. After each flip, we clap politely.

When it’s Erin’s turn, she makes the flip successfully. At the end of the griddle, I am the last to go. I am nervous that mine will fall apart into a mess on the grill. I brace myself, and, using my two spatulas, I manage to make the maneuver without mishap. Only a few shreds of cabbage escape and are easily scraped back to the edge of the mound with a spatula.

While our pancakes finish, we are shown a table of bottled sauces. After all, the class is presented by the company that makes these Okonomiyaki sauces―spicy, sweet and spicy, salty, and the original thick sweet version. There is also Japanese mayonnaise, aonori (dried seaweed flakes), katsuobushi (bonito flakes), and green onions to be used as toppings. Despite its already massive array of flavors, the savory pancake is usually topped with lavish amounts of sauce and additions.

Okonomiyaki pancakes are a favorite quick meal traditionally eaten right off the cooking griddle. When our pancakes are ready, we add squiggles of sauce and sprinkles of seaweed and bonito flakes, then pull a chair up to the cooled grill. The pancakes are substantial, but I finish most of mine. Our final job is to clean the long grill with water and a cleaning stone.

When the stainless steel is spotless, a guide escorts us on a tour of their museum, where we learn the history of these high-calorie Okonomiyaki pancakes. Created in post-war Japan as a nourishing meal that utilized the ample US-provided flour, the pancakes are built around the few basic ingredients (cabbage, eggs, and noodles) that were still available during that time of devastation. First served at “hole-in-the-wall” eateries that sprouted among the ruins of the bombed-out city, they are now popular fast food throughout the country. The rich, flavorful sauces, also post-war creations, were inspired by British Worcestershire sauce, made thicker and sweeter to suit Japanese tastes.

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Cooking classes when traveling are the perfect way to get a hands-on experience of local food, a fun meal, and interaction with locals who like to share their culinary traditions. Each of these four Japanese cooking classes had a completely different vibe—casual to structured, hands-on to minimal student participation—but in every case we enjoyed good food, friendly instructors, and a sincere effort to make our experience a pleasant one.

Cooking Sun, Izakaya Cooking Class, https://www.cooking-sun.com/

Otafu Wood Egg Museum and Okonomiyaki Class, https://www.otafuku.co.jp/visit/en/factory-museum/

First published on kathrynslattery.substack.com on 05/02/2026