Last Friday, we threw our first NikkeiSA Okonomiyaki Party!
For those of you who aren't familiar with this Japanese dish, Okonomiyaki (お好み焼き) is a dish that's associated with the Kansai and Hiroshima areas (hence "Kansai" and "Hiroshima" - style okonomiyaki...). The primary ingredients include eggs, flour, cabbage, bean sprouts, pickled ginger, green onions, meat and seafood. It's a pan-fried dish prepared similar to the way one would prepare a pancake, but on teppan, or hotplates. It's served with okonomiyaki sauce, Japanese-style mayo, nori and katsuobushi (fish flakes)...There really isn't a uniform recipe for the dish, so it's a great dish to experiment different ingredients with, too...and like most staples in Japanese cuisine, it's DELICIOUS! :)
Along with fellow NSA officers, we gathered in Lisa's (our president) apartment that afternoon to prepare the ingredients before we brought it over to the UW Alumni House, where - thanks to NSA friend/supporter Kyle Funakoshi - the party was held. We had a small accident before we got there, but we made it to the Alumni House in time, and being their amazing selves, Satomi (treasurer) and Euki (secretary) immediately began to prepare the food while Lisa's friends Deborah and Silin started to heat up the hotplates....
Then at 6pm the people started showing up......it was an evening of nonstop work in the kitchen since the okonomiyaki took time to cook......so Silin and Deborah cooked yaki soba as an appetizer for our guests.....we took a huge bowl of yaki soba out...and it was gone in as fast as 3 minutes!!!!
Due to the scheduling of different events that night (other UW SAs were also holding events), I had not anticipated over 40 people....but around 60 people showed up for our party!!! It was a huge success! So many students came... many Japanese international students came...along with fellow Japanese class classmates...and also a group of HKSA members (thanks for bringing your friends, Florence-san!).
Things were a bit hectic, so we probably didn't get to collect money from everyone :)...but for those who did pay, for a mere 5 dollars (if they weren't a member, 3 if they were), they got to have some amazing okonomiyaki.
Everyone agreed that the okonomiyaki tasted AMAZING (Kohane, Satomi, Euki, Silin, Deborah, Aileen and others were AWESOME chefs!)...people even started lining up in the kitchen before we took it out to serve it!
It was also an opportunity for people to become members! We're so happy that so many people were interested in our club and our events. I got to meet so many new faces and made some new friends. It really was a great social event. We're definitely planning on doing this again in the upcoming quarters!
Once again, thank you SO MUCH to those who came and supported our club and had TONS OF FUN with us!!! You guys are awesome! ...and fellow officers and our friends who helped out from start to finish, we couldn't have done it without you guys!
Thank you to Kyle for lending us the space for the event and Matsuda-sensei for lending us her awesome Okonomiyaki recipe book. Thank you to everyone who made this event possible! Hope to see you all at our upcoming BOWL-A-THON on 11/28 from 6 to 8pm at HUB Lanes!!!
To purchase tickets, stop by our table the week after Thanksgiving at Hub Lawn. We'll be tabling by then!
~Frances (Director of Recruitment)
