Osaka

Yay was allowed to sleep in today because the first item in our itinerary was lunch. Not an ordinary lunch nono. It’s ‘CHI JIIIIIM’ – snow crabs! We went to Kanidouraku (かに道楽) for our pre-booked crab feast. It’s located near Dotombori, easily recognisable from its iconic large moving snow crab sign board.

Dennis loved the crabs here because the shells were pre-peeled (and of course because they were delicious)!

Snow crab chawanmushi, gratin, grilled snow crab legs and yubari melon ramune (and I remembered how the bromance next table sprayed his ramune everywhere 😂

View from the restaurant

I looked funny 😂

We then walked down the Shinsaibashi-Suji Shopping Street to burn off some calories before taking in more. We even went in a pachinko arcade. It was so loud in there and the elderlies tend to stare at you if you watch them play hehe.

Aaah. Matcha again, must not be missed no matter where we are 😉

Their matcha latte was so good that we decided to try their desserts after shopping at Daimaru. The matcha parfait was amazing and the matcha ice cream was just heavenly.

After a few hours down the shopping street, we headed back to where we started for some street food at Dotonbori by train. This is THE place for street food in Japan, takoyaki, okonomiyaki, ramen, gyoza, you name it, a paradise for us foodies right in the heart of Osaka. Wandering here you’ll see XXXXL size signboards that makes it pretty clear what’s each shop is selling, so you don’t have to know any Japanese to know what they sell.

Our first stop here was the best among all. Zang!!! Takoyaki at Dotonbori Konamon-Museum!

This is by far, the best, and I repeat,

*THE*

*BEST *

* TAKOYAKI *

… I have EVER tried! Yuuuuummmmm! They were grilled just right that the inside were still soft and smooth and there were large chunks of octopus in every ball! They’ve also added a hint of ginger which I was skeptical of initially but after a while I realised the ginger taste harmonized well with the dough. They even had their own ‘takoyaki theme songs’  blasting through their loud speakers, with my favourite one being ‘TAAAAKOYAKI’ in the Hallelujah tune. 😂 That song automatically replays in my head every time I reminisce about their takoyakis now. Oh but one thing was that the weather was crazily hot that day so we couldn’t really stand the heat when eating by the road. Our solution? Shop in Forever 21 which was right opposite! 😁

Verdict: Takoyaki at Dotonbori Konamon-Museum 10/10!!!

After my first ‘dish’, I sorta had high expectations for other bites that night. Not a good idea, because as they say, the higher the expectation the greater the disappointment. The second thing we tried was gyoza, just a few shops down. 

They were neither appealing nor tasty. Hmm.

After exploring I realised that most shops sell either takoyaki or ramen. I’ve already had takoyaki and didn’t feel like having ramen as they were too filling, but I couldn’t hide my excitement when I saw this.

Ichiran!!! Best ramen everrr! Oh and that’s Don Quijote a few shops down.
PS: we later stumbled upon another Ichiran branch somewhere nearby with relatively shorter queue.

The last thing we bought – sushi! It tasted okay and was pretty cheap for the variety offered. The staff at the take away window wasn’t particularly polite though…

Shopped in some touristy-shops before saying goodbye. Found the joker version and Osaka’s version of ‘Shiroi no koibito’ hehe.