Category: City: Osaka

Spectacular yakitori omakase in Osaka: Ichimatsu

In my summer 2019 trip to Osaka, I was able to score again a perfect yakitori in Osaka. This time was Ichimatsu (焼鳥 市松), one of the two yakitori restaurants in town awarded a Michelin star.

The visit

I had a reservation made through an online service (it was totally worth the 800 yen spent). They have two turns for night. I joined the second one at 8.15pm. On a Thursday night, all seats were spoken for. The counter hosted 10 people and there was a small private room for 5 additional covers. The restaurant has a very understated store-front as usual for this kind of restaurants.

The welcome dish was warm ricotta cheese.

I just drank Fuji Water. Another opening dish was a small piece of chicken breast sashimi (it is always incredible how good it is… Japan is the only place where I would eat raw chicken), with a soy sauce mousse and sesame oil powder (this dish is not pictured).

The first skewer was chicken neck. It was a bit chewy.

Next was a skewer with what was described as the external part of the gizzard. It was nice as every skewer would carry new flavors.

Meantime we were offered some thinly-cut radish with soy sauce and olive oil. This side dish was replenished on demand.

The next dish was one of the most unique of the evening: chicken’s Fallopian tubes. I can say that they were sweet.

The next skewer was a classic: chicken skin.

Next we were offered some grilled shishisto pepper.

The next two dishes marked a departure from chicken. The first was a delicious piece of pork with vinegar. I believe the pork was from Kagoshima.

Then we had a Chinese-inspired duck broth with tofu and rice sauce.


Then we were back to chicken with a substantial wing, lightly crispy and salty.

The next dish included a piece of Japanese orange, marinated tomato, and (on the bottom) a specimen of chicken ovaries. It was basically what comes before the egg. It popped in the mouth with flavorful liquids.

Another soup had char-grilled duck with green onions and Japanese peppers, to mix.

An exotic chicken part came next: marinated kidney to wrap in a leave of lettuce. It was surprisingly delicious.

The mandatory meatball was a little rare and dripping-juicy. Every yakitori chef has a personal recipe for this skewer. It also usually marks the final part of the course.

In the end we were offered rice with cabbage and corn, chicken soup, ginger pickle. At this point it was also possible to order additional skewers from a menu.


A cup of tea completed the meal.

The check

The check was 9,850 yen (88.65 USD). It was on the pricey side, but everything was executed so well that I did not mind. It is not an experience for everyone, but if you like strong flavors and skewers, this is probably one of the best in Osaka

Where in Osaka:
1-chome-5-1 Dojima Kita-ku
In Japanese: 大阪府 大阪市北区 堂島 1-5-1 エスパス北新地23・1F.

The beauty and taste of a summer kaiseki from Takagi

Takagi (たか木) is the restaurant owned by chef Takagi Kazuo located between Osaka and Kobe in a wealthy township called Ashiya. Since 2010, the restaurant has been awarded two Michelin stars. It was mentioned to me by a friend and since I had intention to visit some attractions in Ashiya anyway I tried to make a reservation. Despite the location, the restaurant is faithful to Kyoto culinary traditions and serves kaiseki meals (traditional Japanese multi-course cuisine).

The visit

I tried to make a reservation calling the restaurant a few days in advance. They could speak some English with me. The first answer was no. But when they heard that I was insisting proposing other dates, the answer changed into a yes. I went for a lunch on a Saturday.

It was easy to reach on foot from a nearby train station (both JR and Hankyu have a station within walking distance). It was nested in a residential area.

I was offered a seat in a room with a long wooden counter ideal for solo-diners. During the meal, only another customer was in the room.

The first appetizer was a composition with pumpkin, octopus, okra, in a base of yuzu jelly. Shiso flower on top. A young chef would bring me the dishes and provide some explanation in English.

The second dish was a hearty soup with egg custard and red beans. I was explained that they used shrimp paste to create the aspect of ice in the soup. It was a way to pay homage to the summer.

The third dish was a bowl of quality sashimi: tai from Awashima and tuna from Shimane.

The fourth dish was a composition of five beautifully-crafted snacks: taro with uni (top-left), white fish and cucumber (top-right), marinated and grilled salmon (center), squid with shiso flower (bottom-left), a roll with zucchini, ayu fish and miso (bottom-right).

The theme of the summer was strong in the fifth dish that had a piece of fried hamo (a type of sea eel), a favorite in Kyoto during the summer.

At this point the meal was coming to a close and they offered me hot tea.

The classic rice dish kept for the end was a bowl of simple steamed rice, miso soup (with fried tofu) and pickles.

Finally for dessert there was lemon and yogurt ice cream on a jelly of mixed berries (not pictured), a piece of monaka with the classic filling of red bean, and a bowl of hot matcha.

The all service took around 105 minutes (it was a bit slow at times but I did not mind).

The dishes were as delicious as beautifully presented.

The check

The check was 6,372 yen (59 USD) that was an incredible value for such a perfect meal. They also had a set menu with an higher price (I believe 10,000) that was actually my preference but we could not understand each other on the phone about this point (apparently you need to express your preference at the moment of the booking). The higher value set came with more premium ingredients and I believe an additional grilled dish.

To me this restaurant was absolutely worth the detour from Osaka and will remain one of my top dining experiences of 2019.

Where in Ashiya
12-8, Oharacho
In Japanese: 〒659-0092 兵庫県芦屋市大原町12-8.

Finding a good takoyaki on Dotonbori: Takohachi

Running along the canal with the same name, Dotobori is one of the principal tourist destinations in Osaka. Food is one of the main attractions and takoyaki is one of those soul foods that are sold everywhere on this busy street.

Takoyaki is a ball-shaped Japanese snack made of a wheat flour-based batter and cooked in a special molded pan. It is typically filled with minced or diced octopus (tako). It is a fixture in Japanese street food and festivals.

The visit

What attracted me to Takohachi (たこ八), which serves also okonomiyaki on the upper floor, was an air-conditioned room where to eat the snack. On a very hot day, it was a big plus!

I had 5 takoyaki (for many places the minimum order was 6) that came covered in bonito flakes. This was not my first takoyaki in Japan, however it was very different from my previous experiences. The main difference was that it was very creamy and almost sweet. Way better than my previous ones. As usual, it was very hot and I had to cut it in two to get it cooler. Eating it in one shot was not advisable.

The check

Five takoyaki cost 400 yen (less than 4 USD). It is still an affordable eat.

Where in Osaka:
1 Chome-5-10 Dotonbori, Chuo Ward.

Okonomiyaki experience at Okaru in Osaka

Okonomiyaki is a Japanese savory pancake containing a variety of ingredients in a wheat-flour-based batter. It is one of the typical dishes of Osaka.

There are literally hundreds of okonomiyaki restaurants in Osaka, so choosing one was not a simple task. I think that in the end I made a good choice.

The visit

The restaurant was down an alley in the maze of Namba shopping district, very close to Dotonbori.

I had to wait just a few minutes to be escorted to my dining room. The centerpiece of the room of course was the long table with the teppanyaki. I shared the room with two Korean guys.

From the menu I chose the “special mix” containing a little bit of everything (minced meat, pork, shrimp, octopus, squid, and oyster). As in many restaurants like this, they also offered yakisoba or udon (two types of fried noodles). If you wish to have some fried noodles on top of your pancake you can choose the “modern yaki” option.

Soon, a lovely old lady came into the room with the ingredients that were laid down on the hot surface.

She left it simmer for a while under a pot.

Finally, when she was satisfied with the cooking, she started to put the sauce on the finished pancake.

The sauce is usually made with tomato ketchup, Worcestershire sauce and honey or sugar or soy sauce.

The last touch was painting the Osaka Tower with mayonnaise on top.

How was it? My expectations were low because I did not like okonomiyaki that I had tried before outside Japan. Well, it was delicious. The paste was thick and all ingredients were well amalgamated together. The flavor was savory and there was definitely an umami thing going on. I will try it again.

The check

For some reason I could not get the receipt… I spent 1,400 yen (13 USD) including an iced tea. Not bad considering the overall experience and service.

Where in Osaka:
1-9-19, Sennichimae, Chuo-ku.
In Japanese: 大阪府 大阪市中央区 千日前 1-9-19.

How a Michelin-recommended yakitori dinner looks like in Japan – Yakitori Ueda in Osaka

Yakitori is a type of Japanese cuisine (and restaurant) serving chicken skewers. Sounds trivial? It is not… Yakitori is no-holds-barred: in a real Japanese yakitori you will be served parts of the chicken you have never heard about. Breaking down a chicken to get those parts and preparing them for the grill requires some artistry. Additionally, cooking is not a trivial matter either: yakitori is grilled over charcoal fire and a skilled chef knows how to achieve the best results by varying the level of the heat depending on the type of skewer.

For this culinary adventure I patronized Kitahama Yakitori Ueda in Osaka. I selected this specific venue as it was part of handful venues recommended by the local Michelin Guide (Ueda is a Bib Gourmand, that indicates excellent value in addition to quality of the food offering). As I do not speak Japanese, it was not an easy feat. My first attempt in the summer 2017 failed miserably (they seemed to be fully booked when I showed up). Next time – end of June 2018 – I enlisted the help of a local guide, found through the amazing service of the Osaka good-will guides association (a service pairing visitors with locals willing to act as tour guides at no charge). They do not usually help in restaurant bookings, but I convinced my guide to have a tour in central Osaka and then to go together to this yakitori (I picked up, joyfully, the tab for both).

The visit

I and my guide arrived at around 6pm when the restaurant had just opened. At that time we could see office workers swarming around us rushing to the nearest metro station. Yakitori Ueda is located in the basement of an office building in one of Osaka commercial districts. It is easy to miss, since the entrance is not on the main road, but it is located on a side of the building. Having someone willing to translate made the visit perfect as I could get a lot of details about the food that I would have otherwise missed.

We chose the set menu including 8 skewers and we added a couple of items. What follows is a description of what we got.

The mandatory starter was a small portion of chicken liver pâté. Nothing special, sweet flavor; the pâté resembled a portion of crème brûlée.

Before beginning with the skewers, we got some raw chicken tight with fermented seaweed. This dish was not 100% real chicken sashimi, since it was a bit seared. Having overcome the fear of essentially raw chicken meat, I truly enjoyed the dish. The restaurant, by the way, has a special focus on chicken sashimi. A couple sitting at the counter next to me had a mountain of completely raw chicken. The menu suggested to eat raw chicken within 20 minutes of serving (to avoid contamination) and declined any responsibility in case of sickness.

The other dish we ordered apart from the skewers was chicken skin in ponzu sauce. The skin was soft, not crispy and amalgamated very well with the flavor of the sauce.

The first skewer was made of shirako. Shirako indicates the sperm sac of an animal (it is usually used for fish). Yes, I ate the sperm sac of a bunch of chickens. Actually it was delicious: once you bite and break the skin, the interior seems like melted cheese.

The second skewer involved three pieces of chicken stomach. The chicken is an incredible animal, it does not have any teeth, but part of the stomach actively grinds grains and fiber in smaller particles (this is my source). This part is called gizzard, while the part used for storage is called proventriculus. We got some gizzard. This meat is gummy (probably consequence of its muscular nature); I had tried it elsewhere and I had not liked it. Not this time. The meat had great flavor, like a herb sausage, and I did not mind the texture.

This was a piece of ‘furisode’. According to this source, the “term is used to refer to the shoulder meat of the chicken, which is the intermediate portion of the chicken between the breast and the wing”. It came with some sauce made of fermented beans and miso. A very tasty piece.

The fourth skewer presented a meaty piece of chicken tight cooked medium raw and dipped in vinegar. This was a very juicy bite.

Now that we were midway through our eight dishes, we were offered an “intermission”: some vegetables with miso dipping sauce. Nice to clean the palate.

The fifth skewer was made of a piece of neck. Again a different flavor! This time the meat was tender, a bit chewy and with a hint of flavor coming from fat.

The sixth skewer consisted in a piece of the bum of the chicken. This was a more plain flavor in my opinion.

The seventh skewer was the classic chicken meatball. Apparently every serious yakitori restaurant has its own recipe for this kind of meatball. In this case, it was different from any other skewered chicken meatball I had experienced. What made the difference was the presence of some herbs and some raw meat inside.

The last dish seemed trivial after all of these exotic parts… chicken wings with a speck of lime. The meat was pinkish, revealing a medium raw cooking and the skin soft.

What an incredible meal! Every skewer had its own unique flavor and every bite delivered intense ad superb taste. Certainly the quality of the meat (the chicken are sourced from the nearby Nara) had a part, but the artful cooking was what made the difference in bringing out the flavor in each skewer.

The check

I do not have a picture of the check, but the set menu for two, two additional dishes and a couple of drinks totaled around 12000 yen (around 54 USD per person). Given the quality of the experience, I find it hardly expensive.  Sure, you can have a similar number of skewers for half this price if not less, but you will not come even close to this quality in the cooking and in the preparation of the meat. All in all, I was very happy to score this restaurant and I would recommend anyone to try a serious yakitori while in Japan.

Where in Osaka:
2-6-6 Kitahama, Chuo-ku | Crystal Tower B1F, Chuo, Osaka 541-0041
Address in Japanese: 〒541-0041 大阪府大阪市中央区北浜2-6-6 クリスタルタワーB1
Note: menu was only available in Japanese and staff only spoke Japanese. Reservation possible via phone (06-6205-8855). If you do not speak Japanese I strongly encourage you to find a local willing to come with you.
Read this article to learn more about yakitori.

This meal changed the way I see sushi, for ever

Everybody knows about sushi: that quintessential Japanese food, raw fish on rice. I ate tons of sushi around the world in my life and I thought to be an expert, but I came to the conclusion that I had only scratched the surface after this unforgettable lunch in a classic “omakase” sushi restaurant in Osaka called Sushi Chiharu. Omakase means “”I’ll leave it up to you” and indicates a course meal whose components are decided by the chef. Sushi Chiharu embodies this concept in a classic small restaurant where all customers seat together at the counter and are served directly by the chef. In the case of Sushi Chiharu they have 7 seats on the first floor for lunch and 6 more seats upstairs that are available for dinner. All the diners are served simultaneously and this means that you need to show up punctually (lunch starts either at 11am or at 12.30; I joined the second group).

PS: I was back in June 2019 and I tried also their premium dinner omakase.

The visit

I chose this restaurant because it was recommended by the Michelin Guide (as a Bib Gourmand) and it allowed online reservation in English. This is really not common, most of these restaurants are very difficult to access without phone reservation. The reservation process was easy and did not involve any deposit. You can find the details on the restaurant’s website. (Update: since June 2019 they have been using a new system that requires credit card guarantee.)

The restaurant is located in an alley full of eateries in what seems an interesting neighborhood for food, Fukushima, and is operated by young chefs (the restaurant is affiliated with a cooking school). A female chef attended my group and prepared the sushi in front of us, while the male colleague worked in the tiny kitchen behind the scenes. All the other diners were Japanese and I certainly appreciated that the chef spoke in English to explain me the dishes.

What impressed me was how meticulously every piece of sushi was prepared. Forget about raw fish on rice! The fish component was attentively cut and dipped in soy sauce when appropriate while the rice was enriched with horseradish (wasabi) that was freshly grated at the very beginning of the meal (and it is not strong). Additional condiments were added for each piece of sushi in order to extol the right flavor. The best part was seeing the chef handling the rice in one hand, the fish in the other and finally putting the two together. There was something artistic in the movement and the result was that rice and seafood were seamlessly amalgamated together. This is how sushi is supposed to be made. Let’s see each piece of sushi part of this omakase.

The appetizer consisted in a small bite of broiled tuna surmounted by two specs of bell pepper.

The first piece of sushi was squid (ika) that was shredded by the chef with her knife and recomposed on each piece of rice. A sprinkle of lime and salt was added to enrich the flavor. Ika is not usually my kind of sushi but with this kind of preparation it was delicious.

The second piece was another white fish (hirame, most likely halibut). The fish was soaked in soy sauce but no wasabi was added to the rice to keep the flavor simple.

The third piece was a classic mackerel made sweet by the soy sauce.

The fourth piece was tuna (maguro) slightly seared. The chef added a tiny bit of mustard on top that beautifully added to the flavor.

The fifth dish was a tablespoon of sea urchin presented in a bowl with a pinch of wasabi. We were invited to mix it in the bowl with a wooden spoon.

The sixth dish was again a piece of sushi, this time a scallop (hotate), very meaty and generously soaked in soy sauce (but the sauce did not interfere with the natural taste of the scallop).

The seventh piece of sushi was made with tai (a pinkish fish that in English is usually translated as red snapper or seabream). A good dose of wasabi and lime were added. Tai is not usually that tasty, but it was in this case.

As an eighth dish we got a double piece of sushi made with a big cooked prawn whose shell was removed by the chef in front of us. The prawn was also soaked in egg yolk sauce and different types of salt and condiments were added to each piece.

The ninth piece of sushi sported a cut of saltwater eel called anago in Japanese. This is very different from the more common unagi (freshwater eel) that has a strong bitter flavor. Anago is a bit sweet and very tender. It melted in the mouth and did not leave any bad taste. The anago was grilled before being placed on the sushi.

The tenth dish consisted in two pieced of Japanese omlette called tamago and in a cup of miso soup. Tamago is also served on rice, but in this case was offered alone as the final dish. Since it has a sweet flavor, it is customarily left as the final piece of sushi to have in a meal. At this point of the meal the chef also asked if anyone wanted any additional piece of sushi (that was possible at a cost of course).

The check

I loved every second of this meal. Every dish was fresh and tasty like no similar sushi I had tasted before. I enjoyed watching the chef that not only showed impeccable skills but also looked genuinely happy in doing her work. I will venture to say that her calm passion was transmitted in the outcome of her work and in the atmosphere of the meal in general. The final check was 3000 yen (27 USD) that is more than reasonable and included green tea. Actually, I felt it was a steal. This kind of omakase meals easily cost 100 USD and up and, as I would have experienced shortly after in Sapporo, the added cost does not always translate in additional benefits. Sometimes, you end paying this money for a matsu (mix) of sushi in a regular sushi restaurant that will not show this level of attention and competence in the preparation of each piece of sushi. All in all, Sushi Chiharu was a great find and I would recommend it to everyone who wants to try this kind of experience.

Where in Osaka
5-12-14, Fukushima, Fukushima-ku Osaka-shi, Osaka
Address in Japanese: 所在地 〒553-0003 大阪府大阪市福島区福島5-12-14コーポ福島1
See their website for more information and link to the reservation system.

Godiva gourmet dessert at a convenience store – in Japan!

Japan loves limited editions. Or at least marketers in Japan do. Even the most trivial product gets special editions released in limited quantities for a limited time. Japan also loves convenience stores (called combini)… the Lawsons and 7/11s in Japan offer quality food for quick launches and dinners (nothing compared to their counterparts in other countries).

Combine these two elements and you will get limited editions gourmet desserts.

At the beginning of June 2018 Lawson launched a dessert featuring a collaboration between the famed chocolatier Godiva and Uichi Café, a brand of quality desserts sold in convenience stores. At the time of this post – late June 2018 – a few units are still available here and there (we found ours in Kyoto). They will be gone soon. Limited edition marketing has the upside to keep things interesting, but it clearly has the downside to abruptly interrupt the supply of a new product you might end up liking.

The Godiva roll cake is delicious. It is basically a sponge chocolate cake with soft serve Godiva chocolate and a layer of gianduia chocolate that gives additional texture and flavor. Sold for 450 yen (around 4 USD) including tax.

So next time you travel in Japan pop up in Lawson, 7/11 and maybe Family Mart (they are the major chains and are literally everywhere); chances are that you can get something special and unrepeatable.

PS: do not exaggerate… this small cake alone is 420 calories.