Eating in Osaka
Try these dishes while you are here.
Try these dishes while you are here.
Order the first one and work down the list.
We recommend ordering this one first.
Batter balls with octopus inside, turned with a pick. Hot enough to hurt — wait a minute.
Cabbage, batter and toppings cooked on a hot plate. Osaka mixes it; Hiroshima layers it. Both argue.
Fried skewers with a shared sauce pot. One dip each — that rule is taken seriously.
Udon with a sheet of sweet fried tofu on top. Invented in Osaka, and entirely vegetarian if the broth is.
Small shops, no English sign outside, and worth the walk.
A set meal on one tray — a main dish, rice, soup and small plates. It is in the building attached to Osaka-jo-koen station, which is the exit you use for the castle.
Okonomiyaki is cabbage and batter cooked on a hot plate, with pork on top. This one is in Namba, five minutes from the Dotonbori canal.
Plates go past on a belt, two pieces from a hundred yen. Run by a fish wholesaler, and the tuna is cut in the open kitchen.
Takoyaki with the stock already in the batter, so it comes out plain — no sauce, no mayonnaise, no bonito flakes. In the shopping tunnel under Namba.
Skewers of meat and vegetables in breadcrumbs, fried and dipped in a shared tub of sauce. Dip once — everybody uses the same tub.
Kitsune udon is soft noodles in a clear broth with a sheet of fried tofu simmered in sweet soy on top. A small shop between Shinsaibashi and the business streets.
The museum stands where instant noodles were developed. Entry costs nothing, and for 500 yen you can fill a cup you have drawn on yourself and take it away.
The path from Minoh station climbs beside a stream to a waterfall, and the maples along it turn the whole valley red. This shop stands at the bottom of that path and fries the leaves themselves.
Nikusui is beef udon with the udon left out and a soft-boiled egg put in instead. It started with a comedian ordering it that way.