Instant Yang: What I ate today in Vancouver: Terimayo, Okonomi and Oroshi Japadogs

Forget the Winter Olympics. The real reason to come to Vancouver, BC is to purchase your streetside ticket to Asian fusion Wiener Wonderland in the form of a Japadog, which sounds like an offensive term for a Shiba Inu but is actually Noriki Tamura's portmanteau word for "Japanese hot dog," and probably trademarked. Because that's what the adman-turned-sidewalk vendor sells, from his cart on the corner of Burrard and Smithe, right here in the Jewel of the North, where I'm vacationing with the family. I had the all-beef Terimayo (teriyaki sauce, Japanese mayonnaise and shredded dried seaweed, plus a hint of wasabi), the Orishi (bratwurst with grated daikon, scallions and sweet soy) and the piled-high Okonimi (a frankfurter version of the classic Kansai-area treat, okonomiyaki: Kurobuta pork sausage, mayo, fried cabbage, bonito flakes, and okonomiyaki sauce). All insanely delicious.

However, word has it that soon I may not have to drag the kids out to the Van if we want to consume buns of bodacious, bonito-flake laden bliss: Japadog is apparently coming to New York. I sense a deathmatch brewing between New York's own Korean kings of schwing, New York Hot Dog and Coffee (home of the Bulgogi Hot Dog!) and this tasty new intruder—it's Apolo Anton Ohno all over again. Can't we (of East Asia) just all get along?