Mitsuhama-yaki

Mitsuhama-yaki is a layered okonomiyaki, close to the Hiroshima style, which arrived because Mitsuhama and Hiroshima were connected by sea for centuries. The difference from Hiroshima is the order: the noodles are fried and seasoned on the plate first, then the batter and cabbage go on top of them, then the beaten egg goes underneath the whole thing, and the finished disc is folded in half — so it arrives as a semicircle rather than a round.

The fat is beef, with sinew in it, and the sauce is the shop's own, usually three sauces blended. The noodles come from a local maker. There are around twenty specialist shops in the Mitsuhama district of Matsuyama, most of them small, family-run and unchanged for decades, and the free ferry across the harbour lands you among them.