Tag - osaka-restaurants

 
 

OSAKA RESTAURANTS

Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / OSAKA RESTAURANTS
Jan 29, 2016
Rikyu: Playing games with traditional 'kaiseki' cuisine
Tsukasa Yamaguchi likes to play. But not much of what he does behind the counter of Rikyo, which he opened nearly two years ago, suggests this. Like many of his contemporaries working in haute cuisine restaurants, Yamaguchi has the manner and intensity of a surgeon. If you look closely, you'll see his...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / OSAKA RESTAURANTS
Jan 29, 2016
Kashmir: An austere setting for a flamboyant curry
Let's start on the street. That's where I waited in line for an hour before moving to a dark, narrow hallway for another hour of waiting. At infrequent intervals the door to Kashmir would open, allowing in customers and expelling the spicy aromas from within.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / OSAKA RESTAURANTS
Dec 25, 2015
Kurosugi: A fish doesn't need to be sexy when it's sublime
Without a doubt the worst-named restaurant of the year is London's "Sexy Fish." But, the name — the audacity and stupidity of it — did set me thinking about fish seafood and sexiness (as opposed to fish and sex). Can a fish be sexy? Certainly not. When thinking about fish, "sexy" is one of those...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / OSAKA RESTAURANTS
Dec 25, 2015
Wai Tan Hong Lu Deng: Rowdy waiters and sizzling dumplings
Tenma is one of the best spots in Osaka for food and drink, especially street eats. Japan's longest shōtengai (indoor arcade) bisects this eating area, along which there are dozens of restaurants and stalls, serving local savory treats. But get off the main drag and there's even more to offer. A word...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / OSAKA RESTAURANTS
Nov 27, 2015
Aozora Blue: Where perfectly simple udon noodles get the spotlight
Ramen, soba and udon are the trinity of Japan's noodles, though it can sometimes feel as if the last one on that list is underappreciated. Ramen has followed sushi down the path of global domination — no doubt helped by instant ramen's popularity — and buckwheat soba noodles can swing from low to...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / OSAKA RESTAURANTS
Nov 27, 2015
Tashinami: Seasonal Japanese dining at a tiny horseshoe-shaped counter
Located in the bowels of Osaka Station City, Tashinami only has room for about eight diners at its horseshoe-shaped counter. All that separates you from the surrounding shops in the basement food hall is a see-through beaded curtain, meaning you, as well as what you eat, are on show. Furthermore, owing...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / OSAKA RESTAURANTS
Oct 23, 2015
Kaishoku Shimizu: Slow kaiseki dining, watched over by Van Gogh
Across from Osaka's Van Gogh museum is Kaishoku Shimizu, a Japanese multicourse restaurant with a facade that looks small enough to squeeze onto a canvas. Between the counter and the two tables it can accommodate 15 diners, which may be a decent amount for restaurants of this kind but good luck trying...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / OSAKA RESTAURANTS
Oct 23, 2015
A La Campagne: A patisserie lacking a little 'je ne sais quoi'
A La Campagne, or "in the countryside" is a loosely French-themed chain of patisseries and cafes. The first shop opened in the sweet-toothed city of Kobe in 1984 and since then they have been sprouting up all over Japan. On a recent sojourn to Osaka, I popped into the branch in the city's Shinsaibashi...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / OSAKA RESTAURANTS
Jul 22, 2014
Berry's Cafe: Burgers so good you can forgive the decor
Osaka's Minami-Ibaraki is noteworthy for (at least) two things: a vertiginous lattice of train tracks and elevated highways topped by a monorail, and "Until Sun Child Rises," a giant statue of a yellow anime-like astronaut boy that stands outside the train station. To this list, add Berry's Cafe, which...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / OSAKA RESTAURANTS
Jul 22, 2014
Pancotei: 'Kushikatsu' morsels prepared with obsessive care
Precision. This is the premise on which everything at Pancotei is based, from the angle of the ear of wild asparagus, the volume of the froth on a glass of beer, the suitability of a single Japanese maple leaf as an adornment to a dish, the knot in the master's tie. Precision, bordering on perfection....
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / OSAKA RESTAURANTS
Jun 24, 2014
Baan Suki: Relishing the spice of Thai cuisine
One of the most memorable, cheapest and spiciest dishes I've ever had was also the first bite I ate in Thailand. It was a few years back, on an island south of Bangkok. We had just arrived at our hotel and bolted to the beach. A cook had a cart set up (it was more or less a wok) on the sand and the aroma...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / OSAKA RESTAURANTS
Jun 24, 2014
City Bakery: A taste of New York at Grand Front Osaka, but only just
At City Bakery in Osaka (and also in Tokyo), there's an eclectic mix of what you would expect from an New York bakery (brownies and chocolate-chip cookies) as well as items you may not expect (pretzel croissants and blueberry corn muffins) and a few that don't meet expectations — namely the scones....
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / OSAKA RESTAURANTS
Apr 22, 2014
Gohanya Isshin: a diverse menu topped by fries that wax poetic
Isshin is deceptively big, dimly lit and madly busy; but the staff are on their game. More impressive is that the kitchen produces such high-quality fare in such a demanding work environment.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / OSAKA RESTAURANTS
Apr 22, 2014
Cafe Ibaraki Yu: Former bathhouse offers a bite of the old days
The city of Ibaraki in the north of Osaka is home to Tadao Ando's Church of the Light, a modernist concrete masterpiece. Out of the spotlight, another architect in Ibaraki has been quietly but busily breathing life into buildings whose glory days would otherwise be behind them. Cafe Ibaraki Yu might...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Dec 31, 2013
Juicy Chinese dumplings will Shanghai your taste buds
People have opinions about xiao long bao. And for good reason: xiao long bao (or XLB, or soup dumplings, or shoronpo as they're called in Japanese) are enchanting: semi-translucent satchels of dough encasing balls of minced pork suspended in, curiously, soup. In that magnificent way that the Chinese...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / EVERYMAN EATS
Nov 21, 2013
Japan's love for curry means endless variety
It's only a slight exaggeration to say that Japanese curry saved my life. After relocating to Japan in the late 1990s, I found myself underemployed, surrounded by unfamiliar foodstuffs and suffering from a near-total lack of cooking skills. Yet I managed to fill up at the cafeteria of a local university,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Aug 8, 2013
Eat yourself broke at Grand Front Osaka
You've gotta love a city whose primary motivation is to accumulate wealth then promptly squander it through the time-honored pursuit of kuidaore (eating oneself to bankruptcy). Now, with the opening of the massive Grand Front Osaka commercial, residential and entertainment complex on the north side of...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Apr 12, 2013
New additions to the Kansai food map
Restaurants open and close all the time in Japan's ever-changing dining landscape. Here's a selection of a few noteworthy new places in Kyoto and Osaka.

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