Okonomiyaki at Issen Yosyoku

22 November 2016

Issen Yosyoku is a restaurant at Gion that specialises in okonomiyaki. Okonomiyaki  (literally means ‘grilled as you like it’) is a savory version of "Japanese pizza" or "Japanese pancake" and the ingredients and taste varies from region to region within Japan. The first okonomiyaki I tried in Japan was in Hiroshima and the ingredients included seafood like oysters and squid. It was delicious! Hence I was looking forward to having this dish again and what better place to try this than a restaurant that specialises in this dish.

Issen Yosyoku is located just a few minutes walk from the Exit No 7 of the Gion Shijo Station. After coming out of the station, we headed eastwards towards the Yasaka Shrine and the restaurant can be seen on the left side of the Shijo Dori.

View of the Issen Yosyoku restaurant from Shijo Dori (heading eastwards towards the Yasaka Shrine).

The outside of the restaurant has an iconic feature, that of a white dog biting the pants off a man. There are also a bench with a seated mannequin of a beautiful smiling Japanese lady in kimono. Guests can pose for photo with her while waiting to be seated. There are a few more mannequins inside.

As we came during off peak hours, we were able to get a table for 5 persons immediately.  Ordering was easy. There was only one item in the menu – Issen Yosyoku’s signature okonomiyaki. There were more options for drinks.

While waiting for the food to be served, have a look around and you may find something interesting and funny hanging on the walls. This restaurant has many interesting items on display all over.

Some restaurants are quite secretive about the recipe for their main dish. Not for this restaurant. The ingredients are openly displayed and includes spring onion, egg, dried shrimp, grilled fish paste, dried bonito flakes, beef, ginger, tempura batter, konjak jelly and flour.

We could even observed how the chef prepared the okonomiyaki outside the restaurant.

Chef preparing a few okonomiyaki at a time.

 

How was the food?

The okonomiyaki was delicious and it made a nice late lunch for us. For me, I still prefer the more expensive okonomiyaki I had in Hiroshima, with more ingredients like oysters and squid.

Heed the warning posted at the restaurant. “This food is habit forming. Once you eat it, you want to eat it again!”.