Just in case we had epic okonomiyaki fail, I thought it would be a good idea to make takoyaki as well. Strangely, even though I could seriously eat nothing but takoyaki every day for the rest of my life, I absolutely hate touching raw octopus!! The fact that I actually hate octopus so much yet still love takoyaki just goes to show what a magical f ood it is.

I wasn’t sure how much cabbage we would need…so I lugged home this HUGE whole cabbage from the markets. You don’t realise how heavy cabbage is until you have to carry it a few kilometres in a shopping bag!

I have a window in my kitchen. For me, it is a pointless and annoying feature of my kitchen, but for visitors it has novelty value. Akemi directed us  from the safety of the window ;)

TAKOYAKI! I have an oldschool heavy metal pan for cooking takoyaki, and the first few times we used it, the batter just got stuck to it and burned…we couldn’t figure out what the problem was. Now that we’ve used it a few times, though, it works like a charm! I think maybe you need to kind of season it like a wok before you use it.

Meanwhile, in the other room, the okonomiyaki was coming along…

Cheese okonomiyaki. Mmmmmmm.

See what that is on top?  BUTABARANIKU. Ohhhhh yeah.

Look at the concentration on Mei’s face!! It paid off though. Perfect flipping, perfect okonomiyaki.

After we had stuffed ourselves silly with delicious food, we got down to the real point of the party…a surprise birthday party for Akemi!

When I picked up Mizuho, we had this conversation:

Me: I baked a birthday cake!
Mizuho: Ah! I wanna do this tradition with Akemi…I sort of, push her face in the cake. *makes smooshing hand motions*
Me: *laughing hysterically* Is that a Japanese tradition?!
Mizuho: No. Just my tradition! :D

And so…

Resigned to her fate ;)

“I’m sorry, I’m gonna have to call you back…”

My house is a complete mess now, but IT WAS WORTH IT! So much fun, and so much good food. Happy Birthday Akemi!! ♥