Prepare you stomach, and feast your eyes
It's time for Kansai region food tour
I've come to Dotonbori region of Osaka, Japan
Now, there are different words to live by, depending on the city you live in
and different ways to come to ruin
In Tokyo, it's the amount of money you spend on shoes,
In Kyoto they say it's the amount of money you spend on fashionable clothes,
And here in Osaka, they say it's the amount of money you spend on delicious food.
They actually have a special word for it,
KUIDAORE
And that literally means you ruin spend on what you are offered to eat
Now if I were to think which way to go of those 3,
Definitely "death by food" is the option I would pick,
So let's go and see, what they have here.
Come along and we'll try some of the delicious food
You'll find a lot to look at and enjoy Dotonbori
the moment you start walking down the canal
And definitely a lack of variety is not a problem they suffer from here
You name it, they've got it
Seafood restaurant,
KUSHI-KATSU,which is an irresistible type of deep fried stick food by the way.
Sweets, of course RAMEN, and many more.
But for me, I thought I'd go for a classic.
TAKOYAKI, or octopus balls for the uninitiated,
is a street food born in KANSAI region, specifically in Osaka
To tell you the truth, I normally struggle to enjoy it,
But on this day, in the birth place of its popularity,
DOTONBORI finally got the flavors right
So this is the Octopus-wheat-flour-ball
It's very simple. Wheat, flour, octopus,
It has pickled ginger, bonito flakes on top,
Perhaps some mayonnaise, sometimes
And some SHOYU soya sauce spread on top
Which is super delicious
Now most important to this whole experience is that it must be fresh
I had my initial impression ruined for TAKOYAKI because I had it reheated
or purchased it and let it cool down
If you want those flavors to pop, you want to get it totally fresh like this,
And if you can absolutely find it like we did if you come to DOTONBORI
Let's check it out
Just, just as I'd hoped
Flavor is coming out so much
I not usually a fan of bonito flakes but....
with this flavor combination it works very very well
Totally guilty of loving mayonnaise
I have to reign this in
And it seems the Japanese have a love affair of it as well
It's a dangerous love affair. Dangerous, dangerous love affair
But almost impossible to resist
So of course, the form that we find DOTONBORI in today is not how it always was
The development started in the 1600s
With an enterprising business man who thought it would increase the commercial viability of the area
were he to expand the river
And it worked, since within 50 years, there were 3 KABUKI theaters
And 5 BUNRAKU theaters,
which are kind of puppet theaters
So when I say Osaka is Bohemian and colorful,
it definitely started a long time ago
Our food journey is of course not over
Not by far
We are, though, faced with a difficult question,
what next?
Sometimes abundance of choice is a curse more than a blessing
What do we choose?
When faced with a thousand choices, how will we make a decision?
Fear not, that's why I'm here
It's obvious what we should do.
All right, we're doing a little bit of sit down fair,
we're not just doing the street food via next to the canal, as lovely as that is,
I've come down here to try DOTONBORI's OKONOMIYAKI
And that is Japanese savory pancake.
Now there is a couple ways to have this, depending on type of city that you're in
So first of all you're going to order the ingredients which will be inside your pancake
And that would be something like, seafood.
or you're going to have beef, or pork or vegetables or a mix
And all those ingredients you will mix together
You make your delicious pancake
Maybe top it off with some mayonnaise,
and sauces along side as well
But they mix them together. That is distinct in Osaka
But when you go to Hiroshima, the ingredients will be layered.
as opposed to mixed together,
And addition to that, they will include some kind of noodle
which is a cool variety if you are into trying something different
So as I mentioned, there are quite a lot of flavors to choose from here,
I haven't had pork in a while and it so happens that it's one of my favorite
Actually when I was young, I used to live in a hobby farm,
My family raised pigs there among many other things
I get nostalgic for it sometimes but....
enough talk. Let's discuss these flavors
Fresh, fresh ingredients. Tasting that immediately
I went with the sweeter sauce since they had two options for that
which you put on
I'm enjoying that
What's not to like about pancakes
So if you have ever seen DOTONBORI on Instagram,
then this guy is probably showed up there
He is sort of you might say the unofficial mascot of the area
And he is associated with food as well.
He went up in 1935
He is associated with the company which makes POCKY
If you don't know what POCKY is, they are these delicious snack-able carbohydrate stick
that are dipped in different variety of flavors
From strawberry to Maccha
Just like Kit Kat has a lot of flavors here in Japan, so does POCKY
So if you do get a chance to come down to DOTONBORI, be sure to get a picture with GLICO MAN
because it's a long standing tradition
You think with all that TAKOYAKI and OKONOMIYAKI filling my belly,
I am satisfied....but...
That is until I pass a really good deal for some GYOZA
And there was one
It was about 500yen, about 5USD roughly,
For 6 and a beer,
And that was an offer I could not refuse
Also a great way to cap off a great day
The heavy lifting is done
The heavy chewing. Maybe that's more accurate
The food was fantastic. Really really good
I usually don't like TAKOYAKI. I like it when it's this fresh and this delicious
I don't often eat OKONOMIYAKI, that was fantastic. Really really good
Now, I'm showing next to this guy,
Shouting out for the art next to the canal
For the big portion of the canal, there are these murals all the way around
In fact I think an art that's been done on my friend's guitar from an artist down that way
Which is super cool
So if you're not into the foody thing but want to snap a few shots,
You will find some really good opportunities here
This was so much fun to me
I'm probably coming back to make more videos here
because I saw a bunch of seafood restaurants and I love seafood
especially crab
Thank you very much for watching
I hope to catch you in the next one
Take care up there, be safe
and that's all for now