Osaka Delicacies Takoyaki & Okonomiyaki

I’d been walking all day and on the time I stopped to have a look at the watch I was not only hungry but also knackered. Hence, I rushed to the first local food shop I could find to eat some Kansai food (here’s the map in case you want to try it).

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I have to be honest I didn’t do too much research on restaurants and I didn’t want to spend too much money on food being alone. I left that for another occasion, so I stopped by the first crowded shop I found and it ended up being a very nice option.

One thing that I noticed was the quality of the food you get in Japan. I’m saying this as a westerner or gaijin (Japanese term to refer to foreigners). Wherever you go, you’ll always 100% have good food. It doesn’t matter how bad, old, old-fashioned the place looks like the food will always taste amazingly good.

Japan might be the country with more restaurants per square metre around the world(ok, haven't explore China yet), because regardless where you go you’ll find plenty of restaurants and good restaurants. I presume that the Japanese rate system might be extremely high and competitive because if it were for me I’d always give 10 out of 10 to all restaurants ^_^





Anyway, let’s focus on the Osaka delicacies and the first one I had as an appetizer was a portion of 6 takoyaki. Takoyaki (たこ焼) means “grilled or fried octopus” Tako = octopus and Yaki = grilled or fried.  Now, it looks really tasty and it is; but it also looks ready to eat, doesn’t it? NO, it’s not, unless you want to burn your mouth with a mix of salty pancake dough and octopus at 500C degrees. Ok, I might have exaggerated a bit about the temperature, but it was HOT.

Trust me I learnt it the hard way, I burnt my mouth not only once but many times (remember that I was starving).

The cooking process is a must-see because these people flip the takoyaki in a way that makes look quite easy, not even close. It looks quite difficult and you can have a look at the girl, which is not that agile, although if you youtube around you’ll see some pros flipping them like a boss.

Yet, I don't think I've been the first one burning his mouth and I don’t think I’ll be the last one trying to eat this Osaka delicacy. I still remember how a group of students started to laugh at me. Obviously, I had to bear with it and swallow it, nothing else - and yes, in case you want to know - after the first one went down I drank half green tea bottle.

The good thing about it is that it’ll keep you busy for some good 10 minutes before it reaches an eatable temperature. Meanwhile, you can sit, relax and live the Osaka flashing lights, crowded streets at its best.

Just to describe you a bit the taste of a takoyaki. Try to imagine a golf size grilled dough filled with a piece of boiling octopus, on top of it they put some Japanese herbs, Japanese bbq sauce, mayo and grated fish. Hold on, did I just say grated fish. Yes, I did. Japanese people put grated fish on top of takoyaki, okonomiyaki some soups and I suppose many other things, but those were the ones I tried.

How do you eat it with? They give you one or two sticks – no, no hashi (chopsticks) some sticks like the ones you use when you do a barbie.

After some 30 mins I went for the second plate of the evening a okonomiyaki, oh yes!

Funny thing, my first okomiyaki was not here in Japan but in London in a place call Abeno, very close to Leicester Square tube station. It was amazing but the man who did it was not very a good cook. He was quite young, but also very grumpy.

Here in Osaka, where the okonomiyaki (お好み焼) was born you can find many styles but I opted for the Osaka style. What is a okonomiyaki? In short, it’s a Japanese pancake. You know about the meaning of “yaki” , but I guess you don’t know about “okonomi” which translates to “whatever you want”. 

However, please bear in mind that the style is very different and the ingredients too. The one I had was made of: egg, vegetables, shrimp, squid, octopus, bacon, pork, cabbage, water, flour, shredded or grated fish.

The cooking process is not that different from a normal western pancake the put the batter, flip from one side to another every 8 miutess so everything cooks properly. In the end, they put some herbs powder, grated fish, mayo, bbq sauce.

Okonomiyaki in Osaka

You can eat it but fork and knife but if you’d like to eat this Osaka delicacy like a proper Japanese then use hashi and enjoy. Don’t worry this is not like the takoyaki, you don’t have to wait 8 minutes to cool down. It’s very tasty, if you like to try new tastes and one of the very well-known Kansai dishes.