Chisato Moritaka -- Rockin' Omelette （ロックン・オムレツ）

Many of my friends already know this about me but whenever I head to Japan on a visit, it will always be about friends, food and music. People may talk about Japanese cuisine as being healthy but that's really a matter of what one eats there, especially now with all sorts of international cooking and fast food pouring into the nation. And that's been the case since the forced opening of Japan back in the 19th century. When the citizenry were exposed to all of that Westernization, the Japanese twist on Western dishes, called collectively yoshoku（洋食）, came into being.

One of the representative dishes of this genre of Japanese cooking is omurice（オムライス）or rice omelette. Although I never regularly or ravenously gobbled down omurice during my 17 years in the Kanto, I did partake in the dish and enjoyed it thoroughly, especially at that old tea room in Ichigaya, Tokyo, where I had an English circle with a few students on a weekly basis. In terms of ingredients, it's not all that involved, either. Take some day-old rice, ketchup, some tiny pieces of chicken, diced onion, the requisite eggs and perhaps some zesty tomato sauce and just let that scene from the classic ramen western, "Tampopo" guide your way. Well, to be sure, refer to a YouTube recipe video.

As I mentioned before, "Banana Zero Music"（バナナ♪ゼロミュージック）devoted their show last week to food songs. One of them happened to be something that I had completely forgotten from the discography of Chisato Moritaka（森高千里）. Titled "Rockin' Omelette", it came out as her 21st single from January 1994 which had the singer come up with the lyrics of a very happy pair of parents connecting over one of Mama's prize dishes. Hiromasa Ijichi（伊秩弘将）, who has also worked with Misato Watanabe（渡辺美里）, created the jangly rock n' roll music.

I think one reason that I used to hear it before was that it was actually the very first opening theme to the Fuji-TV kids' program "Ponkikies"（ポンキッキーズ）. I'm not sure whether Moritaka was asked to come up with the song specifically for the show, but according to J-Wiki, its short length, catchy melody and relatively easy-to-remember lyrics made "Rockin' Omelette" an ideal song to start a "Ponkikies" episode off.

The single peaked at No. 13 on Oricon and although it was never placed onto an original album, "Rockin' Omelette" did get onto her BEST album "DO THE BEST" from March 1995. It reached No. 2 and became the 10th-ranked album of the year, breaking the million-selling barrier.