Exploring Osaka

Day 2 in Osaka started as all days on a trip in the Traveling Expat Family start…. with a discussion of food. I don’t know where Mark found the following place, he’s got a variety of ways to find food depending on which country we’re in. So in the heat of the day, we set off to find a traditional Osaka specialty.

This restaurant is well known, and only has place for about 12 people. You have to wait outside, and for once we timed it right to be at the front of the line and because of that got a bench seat to wait on.

While we were waiting, a local man came by to talk with us and asked us how we heard about it and why so many foreigners were waiting in the heat to eat there. He was a very nice man, and I wish I had thought to get his picture. We talked about current events in America, what it was like in Japan post WWII to now, the decline of birthrates and the aging population. Then it was our turn to go in, so we said goodbye and headed in.

Okonomiyaki is Osaka soul food. Osaka-style okonomiyaki is the most common style , found throughout most of Japan. The batter is made of flour, grated nagaimo (a type of yam), water , eggs and shredded cabbage, and usually contains other ingredients such as green onion, meat , octopus, squid, shrimp, vegetables,or cheese. There are only two people working here, the guy behind the grill and the server/hostess/ amazing lady.

While we were waiting for our choices to be cooked, we got to play around a bit, they had two samurai helmets and a sword, so of course Alex had to check that out!

They have a map of the places their customers have come from. Each year they take it down and start fresh.

They even got to play Samurai go fish while we waited for our order

There are build your own options for ingredients, but we picked set types.

This was great, I can’t remember what my choice was but it was terrific.

They sit on the griddle in the table to keep them hot, and Osaka style is to eat it with a small spatula (over by Mark) rather than chopsticks.

When we left lunch, we were each given a special eraser to take with us to remember them with. Mark got a unami sushi eraser, I got a salmon nigiri eraser and Alex picked a gyoza eraser.

After lunch, we decided to do something special for Alex. He’s been into Pokemon for a couple of years now, and when anyone would mention Japan he would tell you that it was the birthplace of Pokemon. So what to do but bring him to a Pokemon Center.

Now, for those of you whose children are also super into pokemon… let me save you the heartbreak we had, bring your pokemon cards from home if you want to play! We didn’t know what the Center would have and it actually has a place to play against other people. Even if we had bought new cards, they were all in Japanese.

So this ended up being just a really big expensive Pokemon store to us. Alex got to pick out a few things though, he got a Lucaro keychain (I’m sure he will tell me I got that wrong) and a wallet to carry the most important cards in.

While he was super sad not to play, he was excited to see all the different options for Pokemon Swag, even if his awful parents told him two things was the limit.

For dinner, we headed back to Dontonburi for a ramen adventure. Again, Mark found this place in his mysterious ways. This was a visual throwback in a very modern and neon area.