While Europe and the United States are multicultural and multiethnic, Japan still remains relatively homogeneous. People from other countries and “non-Japanese-looking” people are more conspicuous in ...

CHICAGO (WLS) -- The Japanese dish known as okonomiyaki was created in Osaka. And ever since our Hungry Hound traveled there a few years ago, he's been wondering why this savory pancake - made with ...

Also, "gaijin" was originally used for any Japanese person not from the area (so someone from Osaka in Tokyo could have been called "gaijin"). Having "gaijin-da" proclaimed loudly by the Japanese ...

After over a decade in Japan, this week I got a letter from the Japanese government. It said that the alien registration card (外国人登録証明書), or informally “gaijin card”, was vanishing. Starting this ...

Paul Virant opening a Japanese okonomiyaki restaurant is a bit like if Rick Bayless decided to try his hand at Polish pierogi — both surprising and off brand. Virant made his name as a proud supporter ...

Gaijin, what may be the first dedicated okonomiyaki and kakigori restaurant in Chicago, opened Nov. 11 in the West Loop. (Other restaurants have served one or the other and possibly both at one time, ...

Sometime this spring (maybe it's already happened), Daisuke Matsuzaka, the apple of every Beantown eye, the superstar in waiting, the man of a thousand pitches, is going to feel like a fish out of ...