I was in Tokyo for a couple days (ostensibly to "enjoy" this year's Nouveau Beaujolais. Yuk. It dried my tongue into a bitter knot. What piss.) The best meal I had was also the most casual. Two of my Japanese colleagues asked where I wanted to go. I said I wanted to eat somewhere that they'd go themselves to spend their own money unrelated to work...
I don't know really where we were, since it was late and dark. It must have been in some sort of semi-industrial area because most of the buildings looked like wholesale storefronts shuttered up for the night. My host said something about a lot of the sweet (we call it Bull Dog) yakiniku sauce being manufactured in the area. Maybe that's a clue. Anyway, we stopped outside a dilapidated building and climbed a narrow flight of stairs to the second floor. It was a tiny, cluttered, and grimy shop. We were the only guests. One lady worked behind the counter and that was about all. We sat on the tatami mats on the floor by the window at a low bbq table. The whole room couldn't have been more than 20x12 feet.
First half of the meal was spent eating random yakitori and drinking Asahi beer. The second half of the meal, the whole point in fact, was Okonomiyaki. I've had it in Singapore and it was ok. But this one was shockingly, amazingly good. Unfortunately I'm going to take the easy way out and say Greg does a much better job of describing okonomiyaki cuisine than I can... All I can say was it tasted really good, the environment was really interesting, and I had an excellent night of drinking, eating, and conversation.
My hosts were a bit dissappointed because the chef prepared it for us. They had hoped to have us grill it at our table, taking fun in the assured mayhem of me trying to build one of these things. I didn't mind though, because the chef served picture-perfect ones. At least next time I'll know what it should look like.