Some outside-the-box ingredients for the top of your pizza.

The Japanese dish called okonomiyaki is sometimes called “Japanese pizza,” and it’s not a totally inaccurate description. Though the bottom layer is more like a crepe than crust, it’s always completely covered with toppings, and while cheese isn’t a must-have ingredient, it’s definitely an option (the “konomi” part of okonomiyaki means “whatever you like,” after all).

▼ Okonomiyaki

But if okonomiyaki has some pizza-like elements, then why not make an actual pizza inspired by okonomiyaki? That’s the question Shakey’s Japan asked itself, and the result is the chain’s new Cheese Okonomiyaki-Style Pizza.

The okonomiyaki pizza makes use of several traditional okonomiyaki ingredients, such as crisp cabbage, tempura flakes, pickled ginger, and powdered bonito flakes and seaweed. The sauce is a mixture of the sweet yet savory okonomiyaki sauce and mayonnaise (the latter particularly popular in Osaka-style okonomiyaki). For cheese, Shakey’s is using camembert for an extra-luxurious richness, an upgrade from its previous version of okonomiyaki-style pizza from two years ago.

The Cheese Okonomiyaki-Style Pizza will be offered starting in January as part of Shakey’s in-restaurant buffet meals, prices for which range from 1,030 to 1,590 yen (US$9.80 to US$15.15) depending on time and day.

Unfortunately, there’s only so much space on the buffet counter, and in order to make room for the arrival of the Cheese Okonomiyaki-Style Pizza another of Shakey’s avant-garde creations, the Teriyaki and Egg Cheeseburger Pizza, will be leaving the lineup at the end of the month.

▼ Farewell, you magnificent monster.

But fear not. Shakey’s knows that a comprehensively satisfying meal not only requires okonomiyaki pizza, but a suitable dessert as well…

…and so its Strawberry Cream Cheese Pizza will remain available through the end of February.

Related: Shakey’s Japan location list
Source: Shakey’s via Entabe
Top image ©SoraNews24
Insert images: Pakutaso, Shakey’s (1, 2)
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Follow Casey on Twitter as he attempts to eat at every Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki restaurant within a 90-minute radius of his apartment.