Tempozan Market Place 1-1-10 Kaigan-dori Minato-ku 552-0022 Osaka Tel. +81665765501 http://www.hokkyokusei.jp/

The movie Tampopo is responsible for many of my Japanese food obsessions.  Ramen of course, but also the moreish omurice, a homely dish of omelette filled with fried rice, which is eaten throughout Japan.

After a hard day of fish viewing at the Osaka Aquarium, and [...]]]> Naniwa Kuishinbo Yokocho

Tempozan Market Place
1-1-10 Kaigan-dori Minato-ku
552-0022 Osaka
Tel. +81665765501
http://www.hokkyokusei.jp/

The movie Tampopo is responsible for many of my Japanese food obsessions.  Ramen of course, but also the moreish omurice, a homely dish of omelette filled with fried rice, which is eaten throughout Japan.

After a hard day of fish viewing at the Osaka Aquarium, and trippy IMAXing at the Suntory Museum, we stumbled into the Tempozan Market Place, a huge mall located on the waterfront, looking for a feed.  Now, the Japanese are big on food theme parks.  So it comes as no surprise that Tempozan Market Place has one such theme park, Naniwa Kuishinbo Yokocho. Retrospectively modeled after downtown Osaka in the second half of the 1960s, Naniwa Kuishinbo Yokocho (Osaka Eaters’ Alley) showcases 20 or so restaurants that are popular in and around Osaka.

We couldn’t resist the plastic displays of omurice outside of Hokkyokusei, and so wandered in for lunch.  Hokkyokusei is quite a famous omurice chain in Osaka and has a fair bit of history, opening its doors for business all the way back in 1922.  The space that we dined in is but a scaled down version of the restaurant, but it was a pleasant place to lunch and the open kitchen allowed glimpses of the chefs at work.

Mellie had the plain omurice.  Just look at the tasty fried rice encased by the perfectly cooked omelette!  The rice was also studded with delicious shitake mushrooms.

I had the omurice with curry and pieces of mini tonkatsu (fried crumbed pork).  The curry had a bit of a kick to it, quite different to some of the limp Japanese curries in Melbourne, and the tonkatsu was crunchy and ever so tasty!  Also imagine fried rice oozing out of the fluffy omelette and melding with the curry – oishii!

God bless Tampopo, omurice and Japan!