Osaka
While staying in Kyoto, we took a day trip to Osaka.
Osaka is known for its street food, nightlife, and for being a grittier rival to Tokyo (it’s not a city known for its charm!). It’s the birthplace of many of Japan’s popular street food dishes including takoyaki, okonomiyaki, and kushikatsu, and we wanted to try them all while there.
We got an early start and were out the door by 9am to hop on the Hankyu limited express train to Osaka. It was easy, cheap ($5), and didn’t take too long; we arrived in Osaka in about 30 minutes. We started with a coffee at Brooklyn Coffee Roasters overlooking the river.
With a jolt of caffeine to energize us, Jeff led us to the Amerika-Mura neighborhood. As we wandered the area, we saw a line in front of a takoyaki stand and decided it was time to start our street food tour. We jumped in line at Kogaryu Takoyaki, and it moved quickly! We took our takoyaki across the street to eat amongst the locals our age, all snacking on the same thing in Sankaku “triangle park.” Takoyaki is fried balls of dough with bits of octopus inside, topped with scallions and sauce. The takoyaki from Kogaryu was great! We both liked it better than the first time we tried it in Kyoto.
It was the perfect snack to keep hunger/hanger at bay, allowing us to keep wandering before heading into the belly of the beast for lunch in an area called Dotonbori. Our next stop was Orange Street for some shopping. Orange Street was awesome! It had a very different vibe from Amerika-Mura. Calmer, less crazy, and the shops were more our style. Orange Street had more boutiques (a la Hayes Valley), while Amerika-Mura had more grunge & vintage (a la Haight Street). Jeff led us to Biotip, a beautiful store that had a cafe and florist on the first floor, clothing upstairs, and a great rooftop bar. We popped in and out of different shops, then decided it was time to turn around and make our way toward Dotonbori for lunch!
Dotonbori was nuts - the visual stimulation was crazy! The street was crowded, energetic, and chatioc. It was full of people and lined with loud, giant signs featuring oversized objects associated with the restaurants they sat on top of, like a giant octopus slinging takoyaki, massive blowfish, a humongous row of gyoza, and a large, animatronic crab that really caught our attention. It was wonderfully overwhelming.
We opted for kushikatsu for lunch, fried food on sticks (different than tempura) with a “tonkatsu” sauce similar to Worcester for dipping. It was a tasty, fun lunch dipping different skewers into the brown, delicious sauce. Our favorite was a fishcake with cheese!
We continued to wander in amazement around Dotonbori, then crossed the bridge and found ourselves walking through the Shinsaibashisuji shopping arcade. It was so crowded that it felt like we were in a herd of cattle, or rush hour traffic, with the mass of people separated into a left/right flow of traffic, which we were struggling against until migrating to the correct side. We popped into Jins, the Japanese Warby Parker, and Jeff bought me a pair of supercool, round black sunglasses, which he dubbed my “Osaka shades.”
After a little more shopping and a couple beers on the rooftop of Biotip, we walked back to Dotonbori to find an okonomiyaki place for dinner. Okonomiyaki is a Japanese savory “pancake” with cabbage, egg, squid, noodles, and other ingredients. Jeff chose Hozenji-yokocho Yakizen, which was fun! We ordered a chilled tofu salad and two of their “famous” modan-yaki, a pancake with yakisoba noodles, squid, topped with crispy bacon-like pork and sauce. We took our time enjoying them on the tableside skillet and washed it all down with Asahi beers.
Dotonbori was even crazier at night with all of its neon lights!
Jeff suggested we have a nightcap before starting the journey back to Kyoto, so he took us to a bar called bird/56, a small and dark bar playing jazz records (a Japanese classic!). It was located in a quirky building with a different bar on each floor, connected through a metal, blue spiral staircase. We each tried a new Japanese whiskey, then said farewell to Osaka.
The journey back to Kyoto was not as smooth as the morning experience. We hopped on the wrong train and had to backtrack, whoops! Since we got back to Kyoto so late, we missed the last bus and had to walk 30 minutes home in the cold. We were exhausted but happy to be safely back in Kyoto.
We successfully ate delicious versions of three of Osaka’s well-known foods: takoyaki, kushikatsu, and okonomiyaki! Osaka was full of crazy sights and tasty bites.
