► Check out our blogs: Mark: migrationology.com/ Ying: travelbyying.com/ Dwight: bkkfatty.com/

After surviving the surprise chicken sashimi, Day 2 in Osaka was an all out food day. We woke up kind of late due to our late arrival the night before and headed to Kuromon Ichiba Market (黒門市場) to start eating. For lunch we had some incredibly delicious sushi!

0:28 Kuromon Ichiba Market (黒門市場) — To begin the day we headed over to the famous Kuromon Ichiba Market (黒門市場), located right near Namba station or Nippombashi (Nipponbashi). The market, although it’s a tourist attraction in Osaka, it remains very friendly, and I think it’s still a wonderful market — there are plenty of things to eat, and what I really liked is that many of the vendors that sell there or have restaurant are extremely friendly. We started off by eating one of the most famous foods in all of Osaka: takoyaki — fried octopus pancake balls. I’m not a huge lover of takoyaki, but these were actually quite good, mainly because they were fried so fresh. The outer part of the takoyaki was crispy and the inside was hot and had that nice mixture of half cooked pancake batter with a piece of octopus in the middle. Overall, one of the best takoyaki’s I’ve ever had in my life. We continued walking through Kuromon Ichiba Market (黒門市場) and when Dwight and I saw scallops being cooked over charcoal on their half shell, and neither of us could resist ordering one on spot — despite them being quite expensive. The scallops were cleaned then put back into their shell and roasted over fire with just a hint of soy sauce and butter for extra flavor. It was marvelous. Still walking around Kuromon Ichiba Market (黒門市場) I saw a store on the corner specializing in tuna, all things tuna. He had some plates of rolled up sushi, and they were filled to the max with red fleshy tuna, and I couldn’t resist again. The tuna was sensationally good, wrapped with rice and seaweed and such fresh and butter fish. You could spend a lot of money snacking through Kuromon Ichiba Market (黒門市場), but finally we needed some real food, a bigger meal, so we looked up a sushi restaurant in the area on Foursquare.

7:00 Toki Sushi (ときすし) — We arrived just before they opened at 5 pm for the evening, and they kindly invited us in as the restaurant opened. The menu was pretty simple, and I believe they did have both an English and Japanese menu. The staff were all extremely friendly from the beginning. At Toki Sushi (ときすし), I ordered the 12 piece sushi set, which came with 12 pieces of beautiful sushi on a wooden plate. Everything on my plate was delicious — all 12 pieces, and the entire plate cost 1,050 Japanese Yen, which is about $8.71 — I think that was a great deal for that quality and deliciousness of sushi in Osaka.

11:10 Dotonburi (道頓堀) — Happy full of sushi, we walked from the Namb area to one of the most popular and famous areas of Osaka called Dotonburi (道頓堀). We walked around for a bit, but didn’t eat there. Instead, we headed back to Namba and while walking around, we found a grilled pork restuarnat to try.

12:51 Yakiton Restaurant — Tayutayu Nambasennichimaeten (たゆたゆ 難波千日前店) — For our final meal on this epic day of food in Osaka, we were just walking along and found a grilled pork restaurant called Tayutayu Nambasennichimaeten (たゆたゆ 難波千日前店). Everything they served was pork, many of which were yakiton style — grilled pork skewers. But they also had some interesting other items on the menu. The meatballs were extremely good, as were all the different skewers.

Day 2 was an amazing food day in Osaka. There’s so many excellent restaurants in Osaka!

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Dwight: bkkfatty.com/