Combine all the sauce ingredients in a small saucepan and simmer for 30 seconds, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat and cool to room temperature.

Beat the eggs in a large bowl. Add the flour and water and continue beating until you have a batter the consistency of pancake batter. Add the sake. Fold in the cabbage, and scallions. Be sure to mix the batter and vegetables together evenly. Each okonomiyaki will use 1/4 of this mixture.

Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a standard 10-inch skillet. Spoon 1/4 of the batter onto the hot skillet (like a pancake) making sure the vegetables are evenly distributed. Then sprinkle 1/2 of the shrimp, crabmeat, or seitan on top. Cook each side on medium heat for 2 minutes, until lightly browned. Reduce the heat to low and cook, covered for another 5 minutes, occasionally turning and gently pressing the okonomiyaki with a spatula. prepare three more okonomiyaki as above. Keep the finished pancakes warm in a low oven while making the rest, or use two skillets and make two okonomiyaki at a time.

That's pretty much it - serve the okonomiyaki immediately, probably in the pan that you cooked it. Spread the sauce around the the top of each okonomiyaki. The eater will cut off peices and move them to their plate, either with a flat spatula or their chop sticks if they are particularly deft.

I've had this dish at a few different places in Japan. In all cases it was made right in front of me in a griddle built into the eating surface (watch your hands!). At one restraunt the waitress kept returning to turn the okonomiyaki - you can really only tell she's done by that last step: spreading the sauce over it. At another restraunt, they mixed up all the ingredients and gave you the bowl and a spatula and it was up to you to actually cook it. At a bar, the bartender made it in front of me on a griddle that spanned the entire length of the bar.