A Western-inspired Japanese dish that features rice cooked into an omelet, forming a pouch, and usually topped with ketchup. The ketchup is often poured to spell out words (such as the intended eater's name).
Typically, the rice is "chicken rice" fried in a pan with chicken and ketchup, but the ingredients can vary. Other variations include omusoba substituting yakisoba for the rice and omutako in Okinawa consisting of an omelet over taco rice.
Stories about the origin of omurice vary, but two such stories attribute its origin to Western-style restaurants. The first says it originated around the turn of the 20th century at Renga-tei in Ginza, Tokyo after the restaurant got the idea for it from chakin sushi, which features sushi rice wrapped in a thin omelet. The second says it originated in 1925 at Hokkyokusei in Minami, Osaka when a cook decided to enliven a regular customer's order of an omelet with rice.
