Hiroshima's okonomiyaki uses pork belly. Fuchu uses mince. Beef or pork, ground, with a great deal of cabbage and no bean sprouts at all, which means less water in the whole construction from the start.

What the mince does becomes obvious on the griddle. The fat renders out and spreads across the hot iron, and the underside of the batter and the noodles sit in it and effectively fry. Pressed down hard with the spatula, the outside goes stiff enough to break under a bite while the inside stays soft.

It is dated to the high-growth years, and the account traces it to stalls in the shopping street in Fuchu. In 2010 it won the first Hiroshima griddle competition, which is the sort of event that turns a local habit into something with a name and a map.

The name is much newer than the food. Nobody called it fuchu-yaki at the time. That name was coined in 2006 by the local chamber of commerce, and until then the words on the menu were soba niku tama, noodles meat egg. Hiroshima says niku tama soba, meat egg noodles. The same three things in a different order, and everybody local can tell which town you are standing in from which way round you say it.