TOKYO, Feb. 1 -- Japanese homemaker Kirina Mochizuki has always considered "okonomiyaki" savoury pancakes the ultimate comfort food: simple, satisfying and cheap.

These days, though, it's a struggle to get the dish, a favourite among Hiroshima natives like herself, on the table. With the price of cabbage - a key ingredient - tripling recently, Mochizuki makes daily trips to the supermarket in search of discounted produce, or resorts to using dried seaweed.

"I never imagined that okonomiyaki would become a delicacy," the mother-of-two said, adding she had also taken to re-growing leek in a glass of water using the usually discarded root base.

With inflation taking hold in Japan after a generation of stagnant prices, many consumers are f...