Food, food and more food

Food seemed to be the theme of our day yesterday. My husband took the day off work and we went to the south end of Oita prefecture to a city called Usuki. It is very famous for its stone buddahs, but now it is also famous in our house for its "okonomiyaki" or Japanese style vegetable pancake.
We sat by the counter and the owner kept us entertained with his cooking skills. There are two types of Okonomiyaki - one originating in Hiroshima (where they basically make a very thin pancake and then pile huge quantities of cabbage, pork, noodles, egg etc. on top and let it steam/bake) and the other is the Osaka style (all the ingredients are just mixed up together and cooked like a very thick pancake). I highly recommend both varieties....

After our outing during the day we then went with my husband's family to a Japanese restaurant for dinner where we had the "course" menu. I think we had at least 8 courses - with small amounts of beautifully arranged food continually being brought out. I really like the Japanese style of restaurants as although it was a really beautiful restaurant, they still cater well for children and in general you are given an individual room so there is no pressure to get the children to sit still, be quiet etc. (not that my children are ever a problem.....). Of course the food isn't bad either!