Known for more of its street food vibes, Osaka is a stark contrast to Kobe which is known for having the best beef in the world. The great thing though is they're only 15 minutes away from each other on the train so you can do both!
I'm going to start with Kobe, which is where we headed for my birthday dinner. Since we figured we'll probably only ever be in Kobe once for dinner, and given it was my birthday, we went all out. Kobe beef, you see, is super rare and there are various grades. We went for the best grade, A5 12, which came with its own certificate and also a genealogy certificate that detailed the cow's lineage back to its great-grandparents and included its nose print, something that is unique to every cow!
The restaurant we chose was
Royal Mouriya, and we had a teppanyaki experience there where a private chef cooked for us. This also includes soup, starters, veggies and rice, but the main event is obviously the Kobe beef! Salt it, add a bit of wasabi and a garlic chip, then experience the softest, most delicious beef you'll ever taste. It's obviously going to be expensive but with the weak yen at the time, it was cheaper than a few opulent meals we've had in London in recent years. Worth doing if you can!
Osaka has more street food vibes than Kobe, so you don't have to spend a fortune to eat tasty food there. First up, let me tell you about
DekaSan, a sandwich shop which specialises in fluffy egg sandwiches and a rare harami sandwich. Rare as in rare steak, not rare as in scarcity, though it is a small place. Definitely worth heading there for lunch in Osaka.
If you're hanging around the Shin-Sekai area - and you definitely should pay it a visit - then you need to try the food that this area is known for, kushikatsu. Which is deep-fried food on skewers (you might hear it referred to as sticks). It's cheap, and it's tasty. What more can I say! We went to
Kushikatsu Benkei. The other area known for street food in Osaka is Dotonbori (pictured at top), which is as neon as Shin-Sekai is. There are various delights on offer but we went for takoyaki (octopus balls) from
Takoyaki Kukuru Dotonbori, a local dish, and one we found to be a bit claggy. Maybe we went to the wrong place! In Dotonbori you'll also find
Lord Stow's Bakery, if you're after something sweet. The Portuguese-inspired egg tarts were pretty yum (the original bakery is in Macau).
Speaking of eggs, we had brunch at
Eggs 'n Things, a Hawaiian breakfast place and, don't judge us, breakfast at McDonald's. Eggs 'n Things was fine, as was McDonald's, haha. The latter was purely to try some Japanese-exclusive items. Really liked the bacon potato pie (and only £1!) but the maple butter pancake pie was a bit sickly.
Finally, we had one yum dinner at
The Most Deserted Ramen Bar in the World. Which has the coolest name. Located in an office block, we did have to queue for 30 minutes to get in, but it was worth it. Yum ramen. (There are so many recommended restaurants in Japan but we didn't want to waste hours queueing for them.) And then we had the BEST tonkatsu of the trip at Osaka Kansai airport. Which is the surprising thing about Japan, that train stations and airports can be foodie destinations! Highly recommend
Tonkatsu Wako Keitei if you're every flying from there (it's before security - we were staying at the hotel as we had an early morning flight so super pleased to have had dinner there). They also had the BEST miso soup - and we did have a lot of miso soup in Japan to compare it to!
Do you like Japanese food? x
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