Okonomiyaki customers, whose name literally means "cook to taste," where request their own ingredients which are mixed with flour and water, then cooked on the griddle like a pancake.
It used to be a simple snack.
With just flour and water, but around the 10th year in the Showa Era (1935), lots of shredded cabbage with squid and dried shrimp was put in, and so laid the basis for today's Okonomiyaki style.

Since okonomiyaki was a "downtown" food, it was in every downtown of Kansai.
Each "town" developed its own particular version of the dish.
Ingredients wary anywhere from fish, meat, clams, eggs, vegetables, fruit and pickles - almost anything and everything.

As for toppings, the various sauces are used as well as mayonnaise, shaved dried bonito, and aonori (dried seaweed flakes).

It is said that Osaka's Sense of taste has a direct correlation with takoyaki.
Data shows that 60% of the households in Osaka have a takoyaki griddle, and eat okonomiyaki and takoyaki as a main meal anywhere from two to three times per month.
It is difficult for non-Kansai people to understand that okonomiyaki and takoyaki are eaten as a main meal.