Must-try foods in Osaka! 6 traditional, long-established and new gourmet options

Hatsumi Ito

A gourmet blogger who eats and drinks at over 400 restaurants a year. He posts gourmet information on Twitter (@hatsu823) and other SNS.
Host of the online salon "Tokyo Gourmet Salon" limited to 140 people. "Gourmet is communication" is his life theme.

It's not oden, it's "kansaidaki." A long-established shop that shines with craftsmanship "Kansaidaki Joyado Toyosaki Honke"

About a 5-minute walk from Nakatsu Station on the Midosuji Line. If you spot a deep purple shop curtain in a quiet residential area, you will find Kansaidaki Joyato Toyosaki Honke. Founded in 1945, it was originally located in the grounds of Ohatsutenjin Shrine, which is an unusual location.

The food served here is something you might want to call "Oden," but it's not. It's actually called "Kansai-daki," named by Hisaya Morishige. The shop's noren curtain is also inscribed with Morishige's words.

Looking into the pot behind the counter, you can see simmering soup stock and a whole bunch of ingredients neatly arranged inside. The gentle aroma sure whets your appetite!

The signature menu item, the "Kansai-daki Set (3,960 yen including tax)," is a hearty dish with 13 items, including stuffed cabbage, egg, burdock tempura, and shrimp tempura. All are carefully made in-house.

There is a stove set up on the table, and you can enjoy cooking the hotpot. Eating hotpot together is a relaxing and fun experience.

The sake is served in an Izumi Masamune bottle that can only be found here, which apparently makes exactly one gou (1 cup).
The flavorful "kansaidaki" and refreshing Japanese sake are the perfect marriage. I couldn't help but ask for another bottle, "Chief, one more bottle please!"

The cabbage rolls are made with minced domestic beef and onions from Awaji. The eggs are made with local chicken from Kyoto, and are full of flavor. The burdock tempura is made with a generous amount of conger eel paste, and the chewy shrimp tempura with a fragrant ginger flavor is also delicious!

The specialty, called "Fukuro," is a deep-fried tofu filled with ingredients such as burdock, carrots, and shiitake mushrooms from Tochigi! It's very filling.

For the final dish, we have "chameshi," which is rice cooked in dashi and then topped with more dashi. It is eaten simply with seaweed and sesame seeds. You can enjoy the flavor of the dashi to the fullest.

These handmade kansaidaki are made with great care and attention. Please give this long-established gourmet dish, which represents Osaka's food culture, a try.

All-night light Toyosaki Honke

"Miniku Club" is a photogenic hamburger specialty store run by a long-established yakiniku restaurant

Have you heard of the photogenic hamburger that's been all the rage lately? Minced Meat Club opened in December 2021 in a great location, just a 3-minute walk from Umeda Station.

A new Wagyu beef hamburger specialty store opened by Yakiniku Sakamoto, a long-established yakiniku restaurant with over 40 years of history. It is so popular that there are long lines at lunchtime.

Upon entering the store, there are 21 seats in total, including counter and table seats. From the counter, you can see the hamburger steak grill, giving you a lively atmosphere, and the neon cow sign is cute!

The large glass windows let in greenery and sunlight, making the space stylish and bright, making it easy for women to enter alone, which is another popular point.

The most popular item is the "Wagyu Minced Meat Set (1,000 yen including tax)." It comes with two hamburgers, all-you-can-eat rice, and all-you-can-drink miso soup. You can customize it to your liking by adding extra hamburgers (400 yen each) and rich raw eggs (50 yen each).

Once you purchase your meal ticket and place your order, you will hear the sizzling sound and smell the delicious aroma coming from the hot plate behind the counter. A chef will cook the hamburger steak, each weighing about 90g, rare.

After that, you can cook the rare hamburger steak in a special skillet to your liking. We recommend adding a rich raw egg!

On the table there are four condiments - rock salt, fried onion, chopped wasabi, grated radish, and chili oil - as well as three types of sauce - demi-glace sauce, classic onion sauce, and traditional yakiniku sauce - so you can adjust the seasoning and doneness to your liking.

It's delicious as is, so you can enjoy it in a variety of ways.

The reason they chose a skillet rather than a wire rack or a hot plate is because it is the best way to cook food. When you try cooking with it, it doesn't stick at all, and it's easy to adjust the heat, so it's definitely easy to cook!

Once the surface is well cooked, place it on top of the rice. The hamburger steak made with coarsely ground meat retains the texture of the meat and is juicy! The rice, which is said to be carefully selected by a five-star rice master, goes perfectly with the hamburger steak and is also excellent.

Add the optional rich egg on top to create a photogenic hamburger! The egg has a strong, rich flavor and a mellow taste, so we recommend topping it with plenty of condiments.

It's fun to try different condiments and sauces with every bite and find your favorite flavor!

You can have as much rice as you want, so you can mix in the yakiniku sauce provided on the table and cook it in a skillet to enjoy fried rice. It's great to be able to eat as much as you want right up to the end!

This is a popular restaurant where you can eat a delicious hamburger steak and be full for just 1,000 yen, so be sure to check it out.

Minced Meat Club