Osaka Archives - Pale Ale Travel

Why Kushikatsu Should Be on Your Osaka Eating Bucket List

February 26, 2024February 26, 2024Asia, Food, Japan BigBody Leave a Comment

If you couldn’t already tell by my name ‘Big Body’, there are several types of foods that took me from just a slightly plump little boy to the hulking, bipedal Sasquatch-lookalike (but more like that one from the famous blurry Sasquatch video), the main culprit being fried food. While I’ve dialed my fried food consumption back over the years, I’ve still been known to crush a KFC family bucket in a dark corner of my apartment similar to Gollum in Lord of the Rings when he savagely tears into a fish after catching it. My precious….11 herbs and spices.

So you can imagine my excitement when I learned of a popular deep-fried dish called ‘Kushikatsu’ that was said to be at the heart of Osakan identity, having first originated as an affordable, filling, and quick meal for Osaka’s blue-collar workers in the early 1900s. During my three months living in Japan, kushikatsu became somewhat of a regular occurrence and/or stop on a big night out to fuel up (in both liquid and solid form), without breaking the bank.

Forget tempura. You’re in the world of kushikatsu now.

Below, I’ll walk you through what exactly kushikatsu is, a little history behind it and why it’s beloved in the Kansai region, the one faux pas you shouldn’t commit while eating it, and a bit about an unforgettable kushikatsu omakase experience that I booked several weeks in advance along with a must-try kushikatsu staple and chain in Osaka.

4 of the Best Running Routes in Osaka to Get Your Miles in

February 21, 2024February 22, 2024Asia, Japan, Travel BigBody Leave a Comment

You might not know this based on my name, ‘Big Body’, however, Big Body has always been a runner at heart. It started back in my sophomore year of high school when I was nicknamed ‘Taco’, thanks to a love for 89-cent tacos from Taco Bell and a portly frame. I think based on my bodacious thighs and round face, “Double Stuffed Burrito” may have been a more fitting nickname. Several soccer teammates of mine started a running club so that I could slim up and ask my high school crush to semi-formal.

The running club’s name? G.T.S. – Get. Taco. Sexy. We would run 5 km, two to three times per week, with the membership swelling from just several of us to over 10 runners at our peak. It worked and I stuffed my slightly less plump frame into an off-the-rack suit from Men’s Wearhouse to boogie the night away with my Catholic school queen. Since then, I’ve had an on-again, off-again relationship with running, logging anywhere from 0 to 2500 kilometers per year (at one point, going two years without any movement) – after which I resembled the love child of a Bulgarian powerlifter and John Candy.

I moved to Osaka at the height of my runner’s journey and was eager to see what the city had to offer. From my first night run around Osaka Castle to the interweaving, scenic paths along Osaka’s riverside, lush and manicured parks, and historic, vibrant temple runs, I was hooked. Osaka’s sheer number of accessible running routes (in and around the city), geared towards novices, seasoned runners, and everyone in between lays an inclusive foundation for one of the best running communities I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing.

This isn’t an article that lays out the route down to every turn and marker. However, I’ll provide as much information as possible (including my Strava maps). Here are four of the best runs in Osaka that were a part of my daily routine while living in ‘Japan’s Kitchen’.

I Narrowly Escaped Death at a Fugu Restaurant in Osaka

February 11, 2024March 5, 2024Asia, Food, Japan BigBody Leave a Comment

I kind of feel like Blake Lively in her opening monologue of that underwhelming 2012 action-thriller, Savages, when she stonerishly says, “Just because I’m telling you this story doesn’t mean I’m alive at the end of it. This could all be pre-~~recorded~~ written and I could be ~~talking~~ writing to you from the bottom of the ocean.” You know, minus the Mexican Cartel, Salma Hayek (and Benicio del Toro), and strange (and steamy) sexual throuple with a Navy Seal and marijuana grower.

Fugu (aka pufferfish) is one of those foods that you hear ~~nonchalantly~~ condescendingly tossed around in conversation, by the likes of that one couple friend who always seems to fly Cathay business to Japan, Bali, or whatever nearby Asian destination needs to be ticked off their gastronomic checklist. It’s a delicacy. It’s divisive. It’s (allegedly) deadly.

I had to find out for myself whether a “dance with the devil” (Immortal Technique-style) was in my immediate future and decided to tempt fate. So, I threw my finest Orix Buffaloes baseball jersey and stretch-fit jeans on and headed to a fugu restaurant just 15 minutes to the west of Osaka Castle (in Osaka Japan, of course) to check it out for myself.

Read on to find out if I survived or if I’m writing this from the bottom of the ocean with Blake and Amelia Earhart. I’ll also explain what fugu actually is and why it should be on your radar should you make a trip over to Japan.

An Ode to Tonkatsu: Getting Gastronomically Biblical With Porky in Osaka

October 29, 2023November 10, 2023Asia, Food, Japan BigBody Leave a Comment

Oh, Tonkatsu. Eating. Hungry. Dipping my pork in Worcestershire. Golden brown, comfort, so many cutlets. Served by the Ton-katsu. Love it more than my third pet who lived to be 19 years old, a ton-Cat-su. Crunchy, refreshing cabbage, offsets the sweet fibrous meat and sour, tangy sauce. My mother’s name. Ton-kat-Sue. Fin. [Snap, snap, snap, snap – bow].

Alright. Now that we’ve got that nonsensical idiocy out of the way. Let’s talk about “the other, other beef.” Pork. Tonkatsu is a slept-on Japanese dish that doesn’t get the love it deserves when traveling to Japan. I mean, what’s not to love?

It’s a deep-fried pork cutlet liberally coated in breadcrumbs and cooked to a medium rare, pinkish hue (but don’t worry – it’s high-quality pork) that retains more moisture than what’s expelled by an exasperated Daffy Duck quacking “suffering succotash” at Porky Pig. Unfortunately, in this scenario, Daffy and the Looney Tunes all end up slicing and dicing poor Porky, deep frying him, and serving him up for the Warner Bros lot with a side of chopped cabbage.

During my three months in Japan, I ate a lot of tonkatsu. All of it was great. However, there were two tonkatsu restaurants that won me over during my time in Osaka. Here is a bit about the institution of tonkatsu and why I’ve compiled this dedicated mixtape of late-90s and early-2000s bangers in written form, expressing my admiration, respect, and love for this Japanese dish.

Blazing a Yakiniku Trail in the Kansai Region of Japan

September 30, 2023October 3, 2023Asia, Food, Japan BigBody Leave a Comment

Translating to ‘grilled meat’, yakiniku is a favorite Korean-Japanese eating pastime and hybrid that requires an empty stomach and a pair of your finest pair of sweatpants (or other elastic, stretchy garb when you balloon up like Violet Beauregarde after meat gluttony). In Japan, you can expect a happening yakiniku joint on almost every corner – especially in the Kansai Region – a Bermuda Triangle for premium beef bovines that have, in all likelihood, lived a better life than 99% of us (for God’s sake, they massage and feed some of them beer).

But this post isn’t just to celebrate the golden ruling triumvirate of wagyu beef yakiniku that can be found across all corners of the Kansai Region (and Japan), this is a yakiniku epic, consisting of yakiniku joints from far and wide: premium, mid-range, and budget. What I can confidently declare is that if you are eating yakiniku in the Kansai Region, you are in the right place. From high-end Matsusaka wagyu restaurants in Kyoto to bustling offal haunts in the heart of Temma, all the way to all-you-can-eat and drink G.Y.O.B. (grill your own beef) joints in the South of Osaka, the Kansai Region is a yakiniku murderers’ row – and after all, it’s my beefy Wonderwall.

Here is a list of five of my favorite yakiniku restaurants in the Kansai Region – primarily Osaka and Kyoto. I will return to Kobe for a longer stint (hopefully) in 2024 so that I can keep adding to this list.

Running the Gyoza Gauntlet in Osaka at 3 of My Favorite Dumpling Restaurants

September 9, 2023October 3, 2023Asia, Food, Japan BigBody Leave a Comment

Dumplings are a top three food for me…ever. I think it all stems from one Chinese New Year back in Beijing where I was invited over to a local buddy’s home to celebrate with just him and his mother. His mother apparently “took it light on us” and only prepared 150 dumplings – this isn’t hyperbole. Over the course of ten hours, we drank (Maotai for days), karaoked, and most importantly, devoured these little pillows of heaven. By the end, there wasn’t a single dumpling in sight.

However, devouring 150, thick Chinese dumplings in one sitting will take a toll on your waistline and I swore to myself from that day forward, that if I ate 150 dumplings again, they would need to be lighter. So you can imagine how close I was to breaking down in hysterics like a 1940s couple at a train station after the husband returns from war after my first official gyoza in Japan (I had eaten gyozas thousands of times outside of Japan but it hits differently when in the gyoza motherland).

I knew my dream to eat 150 dumplings once again was no longer a dream – it was a reality at the tips of my fingers (chopsticks?). Leading this gyoza gastronomic revolution were three gyoza-specific restaurants in Osaka.

Kirinya Honmachihonten: the Inspiration Behind the Greatest Udon Noodle Commercial of All Time

September 7, 2023October 3, 2023Asia, Food, Japan BigBody Leave a Comment

Picture this. A family of five sitting around their dining room table after a long day of work and school. The oldest, texting. The father, stoic in demeanor, like Kevin Arnold’s father in The Wonder Years. The mother, probing her youngest about the school day. It’s dimly lit. A slight tapping of the piano can be heard as an incandescent bulb casts an ever-so-slight golden glow over five ceramic bowls of thick white noodles. A voice, smoother than Siri, begins… ‘I don…’ The pregnant pause ends. ‘You don’. A piano begins to crescendo, joined in triumph by a thundering timpani. ‘We don’, ‘Everybody don’. The climax cuts to dead silence as the screen fades to black. ‘Udon’.

That’s my ~~million~~ billion-dollar commercial that I am yet to direct for the entirety of udon (commissioned by the Japanese government) – not even on behalf of one specific brand, restaurant, style, or region. But on behalf of the existence of udon as a noodle. This is also what plays in my twisted brain every single time I sit down for a bowl of udon.

So you can imagine the horror and utter confusion of customers and staff at every single udon joint I ate at in Japan as eyes closed, cuing in imaginary actors and musicians like a deranged maestro, I directed this preposterous commercial. My magnum opus, you ask? Performed at 11:30 AM on the most unexpected of days, a Friday at Kirinya Honmachihonten.

Damn I Hate Being Soba: a Buckwheat Ballad in the Kansai Region

September 4, 2023September 4, 2023Asia, Food, Japan BigBody Leave a Comment

“Damn I hate being ~~sober~~ soba, I’m a smoker, Fredo a drinker, Tadoe off molly water.” – Chicago Drill rapper Chief Keef

I don’t actually hate soba. I love it. However, one of my biggest regrets during my time in Japan, other than waking up naked in the hallway of my hotel in Tokyo (I wish I was making that up), was that I didn’t eat more soba. A favorite YouTube channel of mine, ‘Japan Eat’, declared soba his favorite noodle dish of them all – and I feel as though I’ve let him down.

I’m not entirely sure why I was so soba-deficient during my three months in Osaka (and various other parts of Japan) but it’s something I need to improve on for my second stint (I’m aiming for 2024). The soba that I did eat was divine. I’m traditionally more of a cold noodle guy (love me my tsukemen), so soba noodles are right up my alley. I fully admit I dropped the ball on this one. Mea culpa.

5 Laptop-Friendly Cafes & Workspaces in Osaka

September 1, 2023September 1, 2023Asia, Coffee & Cafés, Japan BigBody 2 Comments

In Japan, people typically go into a cafe or restaurant, accomplish what they came there to do, and then leave. Unlike other countries I’ve lived in, including the U.S., where political campaign telemarketers, Mary Kay salespeople, and Bluetooth guy (everyone knows Bluetooth guy) post up at cafes for hours on end (it’s accepted practice though), Japanese (for the most part) just aren’t simply sitting there nursing a single 99-cent iced coffee over 6 hours while furiously typing away at their groundbreaking (failed) avant-garde screenplays like the coffee shop “revolutionaries” of the West.

This meant that during my time in Osaka, I only found a handful of cafes or workspaces where it was accepted (or felt like it was accepted) to post up with a laptop, book, or Elizabeth Warren-constituent email list to cold call. However, the cafes (and workspace) that I did find and work from were absolute gems and important refuges for me on days when I mentally needed to get out of my apartment (and hotel room) and wanted to be surrounded by others on the same page.

Here are five of my favorite laptop-friendly cafes and workspaces in Osaka.

21 Days of Ramen in Osaka: My Summer Love Story

August 25, 2023October 3, 2023Asia, Food, Japan BigBody Leave a Comment

I genuinely believe Osaka is the single greatest city on earth for eating. “Japan’s Kitchen” as it’s aptly named, even birthed one of my favorite phrases ever, ‘kuidaore’ – literally translating to “Eat until you go broke.” Based on this alone, you know you are in for a hell of a ride the second you step off your respective plane, train, or automobile, and into ANY pocket of the city. Osaka epitomizes this mantra to the nth degree. And, at the heart of it are its estimated 2500-plus ramen shops or roughly 10% of all ramen joints in Japan.

Here are 21 of my favorite ramens that I downed during my three months in Osaka (Arthur Miller would be proud).

Dream a Little, I’ll Dream on Taiga: Italian Cuisine With Japanese Precision

August 12, 2023August 25, 2023Asia, Food, Japan BigBody Leave a Comment

Dream on, dream on. I dream on. Dream a little, I’ll dream on Taiga… I had been forewarned (whatever the positive of forewarning is though) that Italian-Japanese fusion cuisine was an actual thing in Japan. And that it was all the rage. At first, I was afraid, I was petrified. I was skeptical. I didn’t believe it.

However, after learning that Japanese-Italian cuisine, commonly referred to as ‘Itameshi’, had a cultural and recent-historical significance behind it, I warmed up to the idea and now I can’t live without it by my side. I’m not exactly sure why I was hesitant about Italian cuisine when I had learned very quickly during my three-month stint in Japan that they are/were renowned for absorbing the best parts of every other cuisine in the world and refining it/turning it into a science.

Takoyaki Umaiya: 60 Years of Minimalist Octopus Ball Bliss (Sans-Mayo)

August 11, 2023August 25, 2023Asia, Food, Japan BigBody Leave a Comment

I loathe mayonnaise. I’ve said it once, I’ll say it a thousand more times. Mayonnaise is my kryptonite. So you can imagine I was crippled with dejection and bouts of FOMO after landing in Osaka and realizing that most major Kansai-region specialties, namely takoyaki and okonomiyaki, are topped and/or coated in this globby, abominable mixture.

However, my heart fluttered, my palms began to sweat, and I jumped up and down while shrieking with excitement like Buddy the Elf when he heard that mall-Santa was coming the next day when I learned of ‘Takoyaki Umaiya’ – the second oldest takoyaki shop in Japan (established in 1953), serving up grilled, golden brown octopus balls sans-mayo.