dotonbori and kukuru takoyaki

i bet when you heard about osaka, you'd automatically think about dotonbori, namba and shinsaibashi which all came alive at night time. all the food stalls offering lots of different food, all the shops with local specialty souvenir and lots of other stuff to do. we've been to dotonbori before, but since this time we didn't bring any kids, we hoped we could try more food.

dotonbori

i didn't know that they have their own website, but turned out they do. so if you're curious about the food and shops option, you could check it here. they put it in several different categories, shopping, eating and even entertainment, so make sure to check it out.

for shopping, aside from several tax free stores (like laox) and beauty-related (like matsumoto kiyoshi and tsuruha drugstore), there was kuidaore store that sells local osaka souvenir called kuidaore taro and another one was naniwa meibutsu. for eating, osaka specialty included takoyaki, okonomiyaki, melon pan with ice cream or custard inside and obviously kushikatsu. but there were other kind of food like sushi and coffee shop as well. let me break down the food for you.

- takoyaki: perhaps this would be the most selling stuff in dotonbori aside from okonomiyaki. every few steps you might see stalls selling takoyaki. some would sell only original squid one, but others would sell with lots of different topping option like sausage and cheese. some notable stalls were creo-ru (they sold okonomiyaki and kushikatsu as well), kukuru (this one was pretty famous and they didn't sell lots of topping, the easy way to find this stall is to look for the giant red octopus on top of the stall), takohachi (also sells okonomiyaki and yakisoba as well), takoyaki doraku wanaka (this had other branch too, and it had several seasonings), and konamon museum (beside eating, you could see food museum as well).

kukuru

our takoyaki

- okonomiyaki: several notable sellers were chibo and botejyu (but if you missed it here, you could eat them in the airport's food court).

- kushikatsu: obviously the famous one was kushikatsu daruma (just find the angry chef/man dummy in front of the store or on top of the sign) but there were other shops selling kushikatsu too.

- sushi: genroku sushi (you can easily spot this by finding the big hand holding a sushi piece dummy on top of the store sign, and it was a conveyor-belt type sushi restaurant), ganko sushi (it didn't only sell sushi but also fried food and nabe, there were private rooms too), kiyomura sushizanmai (this one opens 24 hours), daiki suisan kaiten sushi (another conveyor-belt sushi restaurant. last time we passed by this restaurant, they had a tuna cutting show).

- ramen: kinryu ramen (just find the dragon) and shitennoh ramen.

- other notable places: kani douraku (just find the crab, there were two branches along dotonbori. this restaurant served all crab dishes, you had to make reservation if you wanted to dine in non smoking area since it was limited space. i think it had japanese-style seating so it was kids friendly. we always wanted to try this place but the place was quite expensive to justify our curiosity), osaka oshko (look for the big gyoza sign, this was quite a popular chain restaurant selling chinese food), dotonbori imai (their best dish was kitsune udon), yakisoba juza (obviously selling yakisoba, the famous one was tomato yakisoba).

kani douraku

almost at the end of the street there was a small van selling melon pan with ice cream. last time we didn't buy because of the long queue. last time we bought from kunamon museum so this time we wanted to try kukuru. it was delicious. the batter was soft and the squid inside was delicious as well. the sauce was not too much and combined with mayonnaise and seaweed powder, make it more delicious. we bought the 8 pieces in a box and it was satisfying for us. but they had option with more balls. obviously prepare your empty stomach because there were delicious food everywhere. you just need to pick the right one.

don't forget to take picture with the famous glico man