Non-bento #43: Omusoba-pan from the World Only God Knows

I always say I don’t do requests on bento and food, but when I get curious about something I have to try it!

Non-bento #43: Omusoba-pan
Created and eaten: 6/4/2011

One blog reader, reece, commented on “Non-bento #41: Twisp and Catsby cheeseburgers” about how she likes Omusoba-pan from the anime show, “the World Only God Knows.” “Omu” is a short for “omelette” in Japan and people love putting food inside omelettes and calling them “Omu-whatever the food inside.”

As I wrote in my reply, I’ve heard of Omusoba which has yakisoba noodles inside the omelette, and yakisoba-pan which has yakisoba noodle in bread. (In Japan, people use the French term for bread “pain”, pronounced “pan.”) But I had never heard of Omusoba-pan. I googled it and found out that a character in the World Only God Knows does indeed eat “Omusoba-pan” in the show.

Back then I couldn’t find anything about Omusoba-pan, but later I did find some photos of the actual omusoba-pan! So I’m sorry, reece, I lied! It does exist!

Many Japanese anime shows have scenes where characters are eating food. Derek and I love when people eat food in anime or real films especially when the food looks tasty. In fact, our fascination about the food in anime/films made us do the “three days of Ghibli feast”, where I recreated food from Ghibli films. To read about Ghibli Feast, check out these posts!

Ghibli feast #1: Porco Rosso
Ghibli feast #2: Princess Mononoke
Ghibli feast #3: Laputa, Castle in the Sky
Ghibli feast #4: Kiki’s Delivery Service
Ghibli feast #5: My Neighbor Totoro
Ghibli feast #6: Nausicaa
Ghibli feast #7: Spirited Away

Anyway, this Omusoba-pan seemed very easy to make. I still had some hot-dog buns from “Non-bento #42: Hot-Dog Fairy”, and doing all the research made me want to eat yakisoba noodles.

So I went out and got yakisoba noodles, cabbage, and veggies. I stir fried them together, mixed it with sauce, made yakisoba noodles, and I put it in a hot dog bun. Then I made an egg sheet (see “how to make an egg sheet”) and wrapped the hot dog bun with yakisoba noodles. I put on some ketchup and seaweed powder and it was done!

I made yakisoba from scratch, but you can easily get an instant yakisoba at an Asian supermarket or even on Amazon.com.

I had to make sure to hold the omelette carefully as I ate it. I suppose it’d be easier to eat in a plastic bag but then it’d mess up the ketchup. It was very good though. It’s funny that there are many breads in Japan that have noodles in them. It’s like you’re eating a pasta burger. It does make it easy to eat noodles with one hand though.

For Derek, I made a plain omusoba and he loved it!

It sure is fun to recreate food from anime/films. Perhaps it’s time for another Ghibli feast or something similar…

For more pictures of my bento, visit Bento and non-bento! set and Bento details! set on my flickr page. (On the photos in the “Bent and non-bento!” set on my flickr, you can see the notes on the food explaining what they are.)

Tagged as: anime, egg sheet, eggs, yakisoba