Monjayaki

Monjayaki is a dough-like food made of flour, dashi (broth), vegetables, and any fish or meat. The ingredients are first finely chopped, diced, and well-mixed together before being grilled on a hot plate. Perhaps it's easier to describe monjayaki as the more liquid, runnier version of okonomiyaki.

Monjayaki is mainly served in the Kanto area and not many Japanese people know of its existence and how it is made outside the Kanto area. While it is major in the Tsukishima area (Tokyo), it is almost never seen in the Osaka area, where okonomiyaki is a prominent delicacy.

The monjayaki itself looks quite grotesque with a dark brown and mushy glob mixed with the variety of ingredients. Although it may not look too appetizing, the taste is truly magnificent! It's one of those uniquely Japanese foods such as; natto (fermented beans), karinto (fried brown-sugar stick), uni (sea urchin), which look grotesque yet have the taste of wonder.

There are two types of traditional monjayaki, the sauce monja and the shiro monja. In sauce monja, sauce is mixed with the batter itself and grilled on the hot plate, whereas shiro monja is a type of monja which only mixes salt in the batter itself. Shiro monja's "shiro" means white, referring to the image of "salt."

If you are challenging enough and don’t mind how your food looks, I guarantee you will love this! Start "monja-ing" today, because this tastes absolutely GREAT!