I’ll start by saying that Osaka food is sooooo good. Not that the food in Kyoto, Tokyo or Kobe wasn’t because it was. It’s just food in Osaka kind of exceeded our expectations and we had some really memorable experiences, bites and flavors that started with a cooking class on Thanksgiving day.On Thanksgiving morning, we took the Shinkansen over to Osaka, less than one hour away. Sean had scheduled a cooking class for us in the afternoon with “Cook in Osaka” with Yurika. We dropped our bags at the hotel and then headed outside of the city center on a train to meet her. Yurika is a young and enterprising woman who runs the cooking classes out of the home she still lives in with her parents. It was a fantastic experience to be in her home and cook with her and her mother.

Yurika speaks perfect English and this business is her way of combining her passion for food and cooking with her language skills. So impressed!

We started off by learning about dashi, the Japanese broth of dried fish, bonito flakes and kombu. It’s light and slightly fishy but has complexity. We used this as an ingredient in our later dishes.

We then made okonomiyaki, a savory Japanese pancake with cabbage, ginger, pork, etc.; yakisoba which is stir fried noodles with cabbage and pork then topped with sauces, and takoyaki, the fried octopus balls.

Sean pouring the takoyaki into the fryer.

Noodle pull for yakisoba.

Octopus for the takoyaki.

Group photo. Her mom took lots of photos of our cooking. This was easily one of our favorite activities during our visit to Japan. Life-enriching. And we’ve made the dashi and okonomiyaki several times at home!

While we’d figured out that twin beds would give us more room, Japanese hotels continued to shock me with how small they could be. Our room in Osaka was tight, especially the bathroom. Oy. Lesson learned though – if buying a bundle, do the research on hotels and upgrade if necessary!

After getting back from the cooking class, we took a nap and then headed out to wander around our area. The internet told us there were many restaurants, cafes, bars and even a couple of breweries in walking distance!

We stopped an English pub near the hotel – tiny place with pub-like decor and Guinness on draft. We sat at the bar and ordered our drink from a woman who spoke no English.

A couple of blocks away was a craft beer bar that was awesome and we hung out there for awhile.

They had some American craft beers on draft, including some from Funkwerks in Colorado (2nd below). We shared a few plates including tofu and mushrooms. Yum! Afterward, we walked several more blocks to a brewery and tried a few local brews. Pretty good.

It was a pretty early night for us because the next day we had a day trip out to Himeji Castle and Kobe. Be sure to check out that post. 🙂

When we got back from Himeji Castle and Kobe, we rested back at the room for a bit and the went back out into our nearby neighborhood to check out some of the places we’d seen the night before while we wandered.

First was a sake bar that we stayed for just a bit because they allowed smoking. 🙁 Too bad, because there was so much we wanted to try. We checked out a Spanish tapas restaurant and had a nibble and glasses of wine before deciding we were definitely ready for dinner. Sean had been wanting to go to a soba restaurant, so we found one not far away and headed over.

The restaurant was very busy and they told us it would be a wait for a table. We decided to stay and wait, which I think surprised them. We sat outside and then Sean went to the corner mart to get us each a can of beer since there are no open container laws. Ha!

When we finally got seated, it was in a small back room with sunken tables and benches. There was a table of four Japanese business men sitting next to us who all laughed a bit when we came in. Oh, well. We did not let them ruin our experience.

Apparently, none of the wait staff spoke good enough English so they sent in the dishwasher, who spoke great English. Most of the time, we’d been able to get by with pointing and pictures on the menus but this menu had blurry, small photos and it seemed the ordering was a bit more complex. 

He helped us order the soba noodles, with accompaniments, along with 2 soups for them – a simple broth that tasted like dashi that we added scallions to and an incredible chicken soup with a rich, umami flavor that will stay with me forever. Probably dashi-based, with lemongrass, garlic, soy, chicken or pork fat….all kinds of goodies. It was my top dish of 2017 in my Best Things I Ate post. So, yeah – an amazing experience.

As if that weren’t enough, we also had a soy sauce-based dipping sauce that our server told us to grate fresh wasabi into and then dip the noodles in. Oh. My. Gawd. Unreal how something so simple can be so incredible. We have made this at home but using sauce from the store and decidedly NOT freshly grated wasabi so not as good but we’ll go with it. Oh, and sake. Delicious sake.

What a meal and memory to have. So thankful.

Saturday was our last day in Japan. 🙁 We got up and ate our mochi from the Tsukiji Fish Market that we had left and then headed out to the Umeda Sky Building for some views. A bit of an adventure getting there as there was all sorts of construction that had us up and down and all around, but we saw some neat stuff along the way. And found a coffee shop that did pour overs – so we stopped and had a brew.

The views were great. Vast expanse of city, river, mountains…lovely.

For lunch, we went down the building’s food court which looked like a little Japanese alley-way – coolest food court ever. Popped in to a ramen joint and had two tasty bowls. 

After that, we walked to see what was near, then decided we wanted to shop so called a taxi to get us close to a market where we got some flavored Kit-Kats and cute stationery. 4-5pm was a quiet period so while we were wanting a coffee and a snack, we found lots of places closed. We kept walking until we hit one of the big attractions of Osaka – Dontonbori area. It’s pretty much all the crazy Japanese things you expect – lights, crowds, flashing billboards, ads everywhere, crazy buildings and this area has rides, too. NUTS. So much to see. Easy to get overwhelmed. We did find a coffee shop to stop into for a rest, whew.

Then we continued our shopping, on a quest to get a knife for Sean and some chopsticks and chopstick rests as gifts to take home. This area off of an open-air mall was full of such places and completely adorable so we really lucked out finding it, especially as we got there about 30 minutes before everything started to close.

Shopping trip was successful!

Our feet were hurting pretty badly so we made our way to the nearest train station and figured out how to get back to our hotel. We picked up a beer each at the nearby 7Eleven to use the rest of the funds on our train cards (so convenient how you can do that) and went up to the room for a rest.

Sean did some research and found another brewery not too far away that was supposed to be really good. We headed over, noting the perfect 50-degree temps and gorgeous fall colors that showed in the street lamps. 

We sat at the bar and watched them make food. We each had a couple of beer, my most memorable one being a pale ale with earl grey and some other herbs. So tasty. We had a variety of small plates, including gyoza, a cabbage and dumpling soup with Thai-style spicy broth, tempura onions and a seared pork with scallions and glaze. All very good. We left happy and satisfied. And isn’t that the best way to end any trip?