Day 14 - Minami’s Greatest Hits

PS: Images still a day beyhind. Wifi is slow at the hotel.

An Osaka landmark for over a century, the 600m-long Kuromon Ichiba market is in equal parts a functioning market and a tourist attraction. Vendors selling fresh fish, meat, produce and pickles attract chefs and local home cooks; shops offering takeaway sushi or with grills set up to provide us with tako-yaki (octopus in dough balls), grilled scallop (freshly shucked with the the adductor muscle and soy sauce), as well as the now infamous strawberries with candy glaze.

After a hearty curry and rice lunch (Jon had chicken, Lisa eggplant), we shopped along Dōguya-suji Arcade. This long arcade sells just about anything related to the preparation, consumption and selling of Osaka’s (and our) principal passion: food. There’s everything from bamboo steamers and lacquer miso soup bowls to shopfront lanterns, plastic food models and, of course, molded hotplates for making tako-yaki. Jon bought a new knife, bowls, and a few small items. We even tried our hand at arcade-style claw machines. No winners but a fun experience all the same.

Tonight we're trying our hand at Osaka's other famous food, okonomiyaki. We spent the pandemic having okonomiyaki every Tuesday. This was like a homecoming for us. Although the chef makes up the okonomiyaki in the kitchen, they bring it out onto a teppanyaki, or flat griddle, at your table to keep it warm while you eat it. This dinner plate-sized cabbage pancake, is amazing. I picked a really good place even though we had to wait 45 minutes for a table.

After dinner we took a walk through Dōtombori. Dotonbori is a famous tourist destination located in the Chuo Ward of Osaka City, with a history that dates back to the 17th century. Originally constructed as a canal, it flourished as a commercial district and has become one of Osaka's iconic entertainment areas today. Dotonbori is renowned for its vibrant neon signs, enormous billboards, and gourmet spots, with the "Glico Sign" being a popular photo spot for visitors. The area is lined with shopping malls, boutiques, and souvenir shops, offering a wide variety of goods for visitors to enjoy. Mostly we were there after dinner to take in the flashing neon signs. It's a little like if you took Times Square and overlayed it on the San Antonio Riverwalk. 

Which would you rather have, takoyaki or okonomiyaki?