Asia,  Japan,  Osaka,  TDM,  Travel Journal

Travel Notes Osaka (Japan) #6: My Favorite Restaurants

The interest of being in the 3rd largest city in Japan (after Tokyo and Yokohama) is to enjoy many restaurants in Osaka (and not too expensive). I bring you to discover in this article my favorite restaurants

Note: JB and I don’t like to cook and we spend all our time at the diner since we get a salary. With time, we have become extremely difficult, so if we tell you that this or that restaurant is good, take our word for it!

Sakae Sushi

Address: 2-27 Souemoncho, Chuo, Osaka, Osaka Prefecture 542-0084
Prices: between 150yen and 500yen per sushi
3000yen/person/meal to not be hungry anymore (I counted the drinks and a miso soup)


It is a restaurant where you order sushi one by one, sitting comfortably at the counter. You can see the chefs preparing our sushi, it’s good for the eyes and taste buds

The “fatty tuna” or “fattest tuna” on the right looks like a piece of beef. It is the part of the tuna where there is more fat, and the taste is really better compared to normal tuna (in fact, fatty tuna doesn’t taste fishy at all). To try absolutely, at least once!

Good salmon sushi has more fish than rice (see photo below). Don’t forget that to eat sushi, the “fish” part is dipped a little bit in the sauce (about 1/3), and a good sushi is the one where there is already a little wasabi inside the fish

The service in this restaurant is really perfect, and in spite of the queue that you have to do every time, you never wait more than 15 minutes

The note is a little salty (between 100yen and 500yen sushi, or 3000yen/person to not be hungry afterwards), but I find the quality/price ratio excellent

Takaya

Address: 1 Chome-7-23 Higashishinsaibashi, Chuo, Osaka, Osaka Prefecture 542-0083
Rates: about 2500 yen/person/meal to stop being hungry

I love this yakitori restaurant. You can sit quietly at the counter and watch the chefs prepare each of our skewers, cooked to perfection. The best part is that you don’t smell the cooking at all and your clothes stay intact at the end of the meal

The skewers are generous but very refined

We had a kind of rice and egg pudding, it’s super good and consistent

I love their chicken wings which are partially boneless. This is the first time I can eat chicken wings elegantly

The service is perfect. They don’t speak English, but the menu is in English so you just have to point out what you want to eat. At one point, they see that I’m wearing a t-shirt with Spanish words on it, so they did a Google search to see what language it was and at the end of the meal, we got an “adios” in Spanish 😀 Trop chouuu!

Delsole

So, this restaurant isn’t clearly referenced on Google Maps or Tripadvisor, I advise you to search for Mitsuru Charcoal Fire Grill on Google, and the restaurant on the right, in the basement, is DELSOLE

Rates: about 3200 yen/person for a good meal

This restaurant is only open in the evening

One entrance fee is imposed and charged 400yen (something) per person. We have the choice between a salad and a carpaccio. The first time we came here, JB was a bit annoyed about this “forced sale”, but we understood later that it was a rather common practice in meat restaurants

On top of that, the carpaccio is to die for, and the salad is so well seasoned that I took a big salad afterwards to satisfy my need for vegetables (we don’t eat enough vegetables in Japan I find)

The meat here is of Japanese origin. It costs about 1000yen for 100g and 1450yen for 150g. I took what-knows-what piece of 150g and not only the cooking is done in front of me on a hot plate by the chef, but it’s so juicy, so good!

And the dessert

The service is at the top. The server speaks a little bit english. The chef is really taking care of everything. At one point, he realizes that one of the customers at the counter has lost her voice, he asks her how she lost her voice ahahah and then he calls one of the cooks who was in the same situation recently … to give advice to the customer

I recommend this small restaurant with closed eyes, which also has a view on the canal (for those who want to sit outside)

Kanro: 鉄板や かんろ 天六店

Name: 鉄板や かんろ 天六店
Address: 2 Chome-2-17 Kokubunji, Kita, Osaka Prefecture 531-0064
Open only in the evening
Menu between 3000yen and 5000yen

We discovered this restaurant by chance, coming out of our favorite onsen in Osaka: Tennen Onsen Naniwa Hot Spring

The map in English isn’t complete, so we had to “google translate” in real time to choose the 4000yen formula whose content will be “surprise” because Google Translate did not understand everything either

Here also, we are imposed a paying aperitif based on salad and meat

The dishes follow one another. There are so many and it’s so good that you think you might have gotten the price wrong. But finally it is well that, 4000yen without tax (+8% of tax) per person

I forgot to take a picture of this great piece of teppanyaki beef (Japanese beef is to die for!). Here is the chef preparing it for me

We are sitting at the counter, in front of two chefs who are working in front of us. It’s good, juicy, consistent and for this quality, not expensive I find

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *