Home-style ── Yoshoku (Japanese Western-style dishes)
Omu Soba
Omu-soba — sauce yakisoba wrapped in a thin sheet of egg
Sauce yakisoba wrapped in a thin sheet of egg, a local specialty from Osaka. Said to apply omurice's trick of wrapping rice in egg to yakisoba instead.
- Origin: Osaka
- Other styles
Lineage
What it's made of
Beneath a thin sheet of egg, thick sauce-scented yakisoba noodles peek through. It's described as an Osaka specialty that wraps yakisoba in egg the way omurice wraps rice. The chewy, well-aged thick noodles set against the softness of the egg are said to be the point, and the smell of sauce that rises when it's cut open sharpens the appetite; many shops finish it with mayonnaise or green laver.
How it's made
The usual method is to stir-fry thick noodles with toppings, season them with sauce to make yakisoba, then wrap the finished noodles in a thin sheet of egg. Some shops use a dough aged to keep a firm bite in the noodle, and wrapping the egg without tearing it takes some skill. Some places finish it with extra sauce, mayonnaise, green laver, or pickled ginger.
Why it took this shape
One account traces it to applying omurice's idea of wrapping rice in egg to the sauce-based yakisoba already loved locally. In Osaka, a shop that opened shortly after the war has kept using the same aged thick noodle since its founding, and the character of that noodle itself is said to form the base of the dish, growing up alongside the city's broader konamono, flour-based griddle food culture.
Before you go
- How to shop at a supermarketHow to choose prepared foods, sashimi, and packaged sushi, when discount stickers tend to appear, region-only specialties, buying by weight, the checkout and bagging flow, and sampling etiquette at a local supermarket.
- Food for Obon and the harvest moon (tsukimi)A guide to the meat-free shojin ryori and somen served at Obon, and the tsukimi dango offered on the night of the harvest moon.
- At teishoku diners, shokudo, and machi-chukaA guide to the teishoku set-meal format, free rice refills, table placement, and paying at a shokudo-style diner.
Dishes in the same style
- GuratanMacaroni or chicken mixed with white sauce, topped with cheese and baked. Said to have spread as a home-style version built around easy-to-find fillings, branching off from doria mainly by what replaces the rice.
- Biifu ShichuuBeef and root vegetables simmered in a demi-glace-style sauce. Introduced as a high-end dish at Tokyo yoshoku restaurants in the Meiji era, it's said to have settled onto home tables as packaged roux spread.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Osaka
- AkanekoSteamed sticky rice pounded with wheat flour is dusted with sugar and soybean flour — also called hangesho mochi, for the rite marking the end of rice planting. The whole-ground wheat flour once left the mochi brownish, said to resemble a cat's round back and give the dish its name.
- BatteraThin slices of vinegared mackerel and white kelp sheet are pressed together in a wooden mold. A sushi shop in Minami-Senba is said to have devised it in 1891, naming it after the Portuguese word for a small boat because the original version, made with konoshiro, resembled one.
- Beni Shoga TenThin slices of red ginger, pickled in plum vinegar, are battered and deep-fried. The plum vinegar's tang and the ginger's bite are said to suit drinks well, and the fritter appears as a one-sen tempura in Sakunosuke Oda's 1940 novella 'Meoto Zenzai,' evidence of how long it has fed ordinary Osakans.
- Beni-zuiki to Aburaage no TaitanBeni-zuiki, reddish taro leaf-stalks that can grow to 2 meters tall, is soaked in vinegared water to remove its bitterness, then simmered with fried tofu in dashi and soy sauce — a summer obanzai dish. Its spongy cross-section is said to soak up flavor well, and it has been named a Naniwa specialty product.
- Dote YakiParboiled beef tendon simmers for a long time against a bank of miso and mirin piled around the pan's edge like a levee, or dote. Rich and sweet-savory, it pairs well with drinks and is said to be a beloved downtown Osaka food, with many shops concentrated in the Shinsekai district.
- EhomakiA thick sushi roll eaten whole and in silence while facing the year's auspicious direction on Setsubun, the last day of winter. Its origin is not settled, but theories passed down include a game among the geisha quarters and a prayer for prosperity by Osaka's Semba merchant houses.