I was an adventurous kid, but that didn't make it easier for me to eat my first cabbage pancake. I encountered the overstuffed okonomi-yaki — a griddle-fried savory pancake — one Saturday afternoon at the temple-cum-community center in Northern California, where I took Japanese-language classes.
Some of the first-generation moms gathered that afternoon to make okonomi-yaki for the students. Some of the kids, who had spent summers in Japan or whose mothers still made Japanese food at home, couldn't wait to eat the flatcakes filled with hot vegetable, seafood and pork. For the rest of us, it was to be a new experience.
I didn't dislike okonomi-yaki after that initial encounter, but I was far from converted. It took some time over here in the homeland — and exposure to really good okonomi-yaki — before I could appreciate it.