On the corner of Ogimachi Park directly west of Umeda you'll find a little oasis of Okinawan cuisine and culture.
At Teianda they take their culture and food seriously, but not overbearingly so. Upstairs there's a stage for visiting musicians and artists from the southern archipelago, and the cooks downstairs have been known to break into song. Overseeing Teianda is Obaa-san, the spritely matriarch from Okinawa who is absolutely brimming with smiles and pleasantries.
On the evening I visited there were no musicians so we were seated on the stage upstairs. If you want to be near the singing chefs, you'll have to reserve a seat at the counter downstairs. The menu for food and drink, as you would expect, is dominated by Okinawan fare.
We started with avocado salad, a wonderful take on a potato salad, with avocado, bits of chicken and thinly sliced onion served in the avocado shell. Meat eaters should be sure to order the rafute, pork belly boiled in awamori for two days. Awamori is Okinawa's (rather strong) indigenous distilled spirit.
Whether you like Japanese spirits or not, when added to pork loin it's a dish you'll savor. Taking our cue from every other table we ordered the mozuku tempura, a seaweed cultivated in Okinawa. It's full of nutrition, although in tempura that might be neutralized. I'm not sure why the mozuku is so popular, but Teianda is certainly a little gem.
Dinner and drinks around ¥4,000; no smoking upstairs; Japanese and English menu; some English spoken