Okonomimura

This guide to Okonomimura in Hiroshima traces how a wartime street-food scene selling cheap cabbage-and-batter pancakes near Shintenchi Square got its nickname, coined by a visiting writer who thought the huddle of tents looked like its own village. It follows the vendors through two forced evictions, first when the city banned street stalls in the mid-1960s, then when their replacement building was condemned decades later. You'll hear about Sarashina, one shop that traces its griddle straight back to a cart opened in 1951. Climb a floor and watch a cook work the same open-counter setup their predecessors used outdoors.