Sightseeing at Osaka Castle

Osaka Castle (大阪城) is one of the closer sightseeing attractions in Osaka. We got off at the Tanimachi 4-chome station (green line) which is one of the main stations to get to the castle. From here, just follow the signs to Osaka Castle. You’ll see the Osaka Museum of History and will have to cross the street to get to the Osaka Castle area.

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As you walk from the station, you can see the top roof of the castle so just continue in that direction. Using these directions, you’ll be coming from Otemon Gate, which is the southwest entrance of the park. It is a long scenic walk so do take some time to enjoy the views and there are lots of photo opportunities. The citadel, moats, gates, and stone walls (made of huge slabs of rock) were very impressive.

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Huge stones

As you head towards the castle, there are several shops where you can purchase souvenir items and food. There are also a bunch of food trucks within the area. They sell takoyaki, grilled crab skewers, ice cream, shaved ice, drinks, etc.

Food trucks

Takoyaki food truck

Expect a lot of people. However, the park is huge so it doesn’t feel too crowded. Note that if you do want to go inside the castle tower, there is an admission fee of ¥600. We decided not to go inside but still felt like we made the most of our trip by taking lots of pictures and enjoying the clear skies.

Osaka Castle

Osaka Castle

Going back, follow the signs to the Morinomiya subway. This way, you’ll be taking a different route from what you used to enter the castle and you’ll be able to see different things. It’s also better to enter from the southwest area from Tanimachi-4-Chome because it’s a lot of steps up the stairs if you start from Morinomiya. At least this time, you’ll be going down the stairs instead of going up.

Morinomiya Station

Address: 1-1 Osakajo, Chuo Ward, Osaka
Enter from SW entrance of Osaka Castle Park at Otemon Gate. Closest station is Tanimachi 4-chome.
Admission fee: ¥600 to enter castle; free outside

Harukoma – Best Affordable Sushi in Osaka

You can’t go to Japan without eating at a local sushi restaurant so Harukoma was one of our must eats. I was debating between this and Endo Sushi, which is another popular sushi restaurant in Osaka but I decided on Harukoma since it was closer to where we wanted to go. After a long 20 minute walk from Umeda station, we finally arrived at our destination and man, were we hungry! It wasn’t too difficult to find, thanks to our pocket wi-fis and the noticeable queue outside of the restaurant. We lined up for about 40 minutes before we were able to get spots.

Lining up!

It’s nice that they provide you with menus while waiting outside so that you can decide what to order, which saves a bit of time. The English menu has pictures and numbers listed beside each type of sushi. Note that one order is 2 pieces of nigiri sushi. To order, you just write the number corresponding to the sushi you want, and the quantity of orders beside it.

Since we were a larger group of 6, we had to split up into pairs. The restaurant is really small and it’s a hole in the wall. It probably only seats around 20 people. Most of the seats available are at the bar where the chefs prepare the sushi but there were a couple of tables available for groups of 4.

Red Clam Miso Soup

DC and I tried a variety of items.  We started off with some red clam miso soup. Wow, we were surprised with the amount of clams they served! I’ve never seen that many clams in one bowl of soup. The whole bowl was pretty much filled with them (woohoo!).

Sushi: Tamago, Ebi, Hamachi, Kani, Maguro, Toro, Salmon, Eggplant, Premium Grilled Eel

As for the sushi, everything was so good and incredibly fresh. I honestly enjoyed everything I ate, even if some weren’t as exciting.

Uni – Sea Urchin

The highlight of this meal was trying uni (sea urchin) for the first time. It had a nice golden orange colour and it was served with a cucumber on top. As soon as I put it in my mouth, wow, I could taste the ocean. It’s hard to really describe what it tasted like but it was very rich and creamy, almost custard-like with umami flavour. The refreshing nature of the cucumber complemented the uni very well. I am salivating right now just thinking about this experience again… I know uni isn’t for everyone, but I strongly encourage those of you who are hesitant to try it to do so — especially if you’re in Japan. They serve the freshest ones!  🙂

O-toro

Other notable sushi was the o-toro (fatty tuna belly). Note that this wasn’t on the English menu so you have to make a special order by asking the chefs or the servers. Oh my gosh, it was incredible too. It was definitely a treat!

So much sushi 😀

The premium grilled eel was really tasty but some of the pieces we got had bigger bones which were kind of annoying to eat. The tamago (sweet egg) is so simple but was so delicious, as was the salmon. Also, I didn’t get to try this since I forgot to order it, but apparently the chopped scallop sushi were to die for. The others kept re-ordering this because it was so good! Now I wish I had tried some… But basically everything we had was fresh and yummy.

I can’t wait to go back to Japan to eat more amazing sushi!  I highly recommend making the trip to Osaka and eating at Harukoma Sushi. Why? It’s cheap, fresh, and just so darn good. And most importantly, you can walk out of the restaurant feeling full and satisfied 🙂

Address: 5 Chome-5-2 Tenjinbashi
Landmarks: by Tenjinbashi Shopping Street

Ganso Kushikatsu Daruma Shinsekai Sohonten

Kushikatsu (Japanese deep-fried skewers) was one of the things I wanted to eat while on this trip so it was perfect to try it while we visited Shinsekai for the evening. The majority of restaurants there offered kushikatsu, but one of the restaurants that seemed to be most popular was Ganso Kushikatsu Daruma — the one with the angry man mascot! So, the 6 of us went in.

Kushikatsu Daruma in Shinsekai

Angry man Daruma

They have a wide selection of kushikatsu ranging from meat items to veggies, and even seafood. They also have sets available so you can try a lot of different things. But since we had just finished our meal at Okonomiyaki Chitose, we were so full and just wanted some snacks so we each ordered a few skewers for ourselves. I tried the classic beef kushikatsu, lotus root, okra, and shitake mushroom. Although we ordered separately, they served us the skewers all together in one rack… We didn’t know which was which so we had to ask them to tell us what they were so we could pick out the ones we wanted.

Kushikatsu

After some rearranging, we were finally able to start eating. First, theres some rules you have to know about eating kushikatsu. The dipping sauce is communal so you MUST NOT double dip! If you didn’t get a good dip the first time and realize you need more sauce, what you can do is use the cabbage provided to spoon the sauce onto your kushikatsu. However, I saw on the menu that if you order less than 8(?) skewers per person or don’t spend a certain amount of money, they will charge you for the cabbage — at a cost of ¥300 per person! I thought that was pretty ridiculous. We clearly did not spend the minimum amount so we didn’t use the cabbage for fear of being charged…lol. Thankfully they didn’t charge us extra when we got the bill.

Lotus root, okra, classic beef kushikatsu, shitake mushroom

Anyways, kushikatsu was fun to dip and eat. They were golden-brown and crispy, but not overdone. The sauce was salty, slightly sweet and sour, but had a thicker consistency than soy sauce. I’m not exactly sure what was in it but it was good! I probably wouldn’t go here for a full meal since it’s all deep-fried food but I did enjoy the experience and glad I got to snack on these. Oh, and I only spent around ¥600 here so that was cheap 🙂

Address: 2-3-9 Ebisuhigashi, Naniwa-ku, Osaka 556-0002, Osaka Prefecture
Landmarks: Near Tsutenkaku Tower at Shinsekai, look for angry man!

Okonomiyaki Chitose

We had decided that instead of going for okonomiyaki at one of the many restaurants in Dotonbori, we would check out Okonomiyaki Chitose instead, which had many glowing reviews online.

Okonomiyaki Chitose

The place is a bit out of way — it’s south of Shinsekai and in an alley of a residential area so it wasn’t very obvious. It was a pretty small family-run restaurant. There were only 2 tables that could seat 4-5 and a few seats at the bar but luckily, we were able to get a table without waiting too long. It would’ve been cool to sit at the bar to watch the chef cook and prepare our food but there weren’t enough seats for all of us.

English Menu available

We knew okonomiyaki would be very filling but their menu stated that it’s one order per person so we ordered 4 different types of okonomiyaki for the four of us. The table had a heated surface so it kept our food nice and hot and they provided us with metal spatulas for eating. To be honest, all of our orders pretty much tasted the same because they just used the same sauces. The only thing that really differed between the types was the texture.

1 yakisoba, 2 okonomiyaki, 1 takasuga yaki

One of our orders was the house special, Takasuga Yaki (¥950), which contains rice cakes, fried noodles, pork, and shrimp. It was extremely flavourful and our favourite one due to the unique texture of the melted rice cakes. It was kind of gooey like cheese but still had a crisp outside.

Takasuga Yaki (¥950)

We ordered the Yakisoba with Squid (¥750) as well but it was too salty. I think the chef put too much soy sauce so it was overpowering, making it not very pleasing to eat.. but good thing we all shared! The other two we ordered were just regular okonomiyaki with different toppings. They were good but tasted similar to each other.

Cold Sake (¥500)

We were so full afterwards. I think we would’ve enjoyed it more had we not been so full. Nevertheless, it was really tasty okonomiyaki and the takasuga yaki was the best okonomiyaki I’ve had! The cold Japanese sake (¥500) I ordered went really nicely with the meal as well. Overall, I think Okonomiyaki Chitose is worth the trip if you’re looking for authentic Osaka-style okonomiyaki and you don’t mind the limited space.

Address: 1-11-10 Taishi, Nishinari-ku, Osaka 557-0002, Osaka Prefecture

 

Tasty Gyoza at Osaka Ohsho

Osaka Ohsho is the main place people go to for gyoza in Dotonbori and the name literally translates to “The King of Gyoza in Osaka”. You can find it by looking for the huge gyoza sign — you can’t miss it!

Osaka Ohsho sign

It’s actually a restaurant on the upper levels but I think most people just eat at the standing gyoza bar on the 1st floor or get take-out. Interestingly, if you order take-out, it’s more expensive (¥260) compared to eating in (¥240) because they provide you with a box. If you want to eat in, there are only 3 small tables available with some stools and the ambience leaves a lot to be desired. 

They do have gyoza sauce and hot sauce but we didn’t try the hot sauce since it wasn’t covered and had just been sitting there for who knows how long… We didn’t expect much as we just wanted to get gyoza for the sake of it but we were lucky that there was a vacant table for DC and I. So we went in and surprisingly, it was really good! 

6pc. Gyoza (¥240)

The wrapper was thin, really crispy on one side, and the filling had meat and veggies. The gyoza sauce had a good balance of saltiness and acidity and complemented the gyoza perfectly. Yum!! Just thinking about this makes me drool… Best gyoza I’ve had!

The problem with going to Osaka is that you’re always full because there’s so much food to eat… But I suggest that no matter how full you are, try this!! Share it amongst yourselves if you’re really full as 1 order is only 6 pieces. We tried to go back again for some late night snacks but unfortunately, they were already closed (past midnight). It was disappointing to not get another order of these delicious gyoza but I’m glad we were at least able to get a taste. 🙂

Address: 1-6-13 Dotonbori, Chuo-ku, Osaka
Landmarks: big gyoza sign along Dotonbori Street