Osaka: Kani Doraku Crab Restaurant

02 March 2009 20:30 (Monday)

You've travelled 4940km from Singapore to Osaka... you've spent the earlier part of the day exhausting all your energy in a Universal Studios where the super heroes speak Japanese... You are suffering from the unfamiliar cold of close to 0 degrees... You are tired and hungry... you see this large crab above a restaurant which is suppose to be the iconic restaurant of Osaka... what do you do? We know what we did..... we smiled, walked in and asked for a table for 2... non smoking section please :)

Kani Doraku is one of the most famous crab restaurants in Osaka. The six and a half meter crab at the front of the restaurant is mechanized which means its arms and eyestalks move! Built in 1960, this mechanical billboard soon spawned imitations, including a squid that puffs steam and oni (demons) that light up at night. We were soon to find out why it's so famous..... food was Marvelicious!!!


Cute Crab Chopstick Rest.


So many things to order on the menu so we decided to go with one of the sets. Started off with this cold crab starter along with some jelly thingy and a bowl of prawn and brocolli in some yummy sauce...


Crab Jelly + Prawn & Brocolli...


Cold Crab Starter...


More Cold Crab with an option of 3 different sauces...


Crab Sashimi! Now, that's something you don't get here in Singapore everyday!!! Texture was a little strange cos it was soft yet chewy. But the meat was so sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!!!


Crab Chawamushi... check out the little bowl they serve it in, so nice... like a peach!


Crab, potato and cheese in a sizzling hot plate...


More Crab... this one cooked in some sauce...


Ok, this was interesting. What you have is a bowl of rice served over a burning stove. The waitress told us to leave the rice cooking for about 15 mins. Once it's cooked, you are suppose to place the crab into the rice and then you see that little tea pot? It contains some sort of soup base which u are suppose to mix into the rice and the crab... How strange...


Crab mixed into the rice after 15 mins...


Soup based mixed into the rice and the crab..... stirred for a few minutes and scooped up on a plate. The taste of the whole dish was refreshingly nice!


And finally, we finished off our dinner with Macha Ice Cream. But here's the twist... instead of serving us a Green Tea Ice cream, it was a scoop of Vanilla Ice cream with concentrated Green Tea sauce distributed over it. That had gotta be the most awesome Macha Ice Cream we have ever had!!

Kani Doraku isn't the cheapest of restaurants, heck i wouldn't even consider it to be in the mid range pricing. It's rather expensive and u will find yourself down by a couple of hundreds if you go ala-carte. The Set Menus were rather comprehensive and it certainly helps manage the dinner cost. If you have been to a crab restaurant in Hokkaido then my recommendation would be to give this a miss cos while it is very good, it ain't as good as those in Hokkaido. But if you haven't been to Hokkaido and don't plan to go there for awhile, then you are going to have the best crab meal of your life here :)


Kani Doraku Crab Restaurant
1-6-18 Dotonbori, Osaka
Tel: 06-6211-8975

Osaka: Aka-Oni Takoyaki

02 March 2009 20:00 (Monday)

When in Osaka, you MUST try the Octopus Balls, otherwise known as Takoyaki. It's a city specialty and it certainly taste fantastic!!! It was so good we had it every single day that we were in Osaka.

Aka-Oni Takoyaki is located along the main strip of Dotonbori. With a stall decor like that, you can't possibly miss it. Along Dotonbori there were way too many Takoyaki stalls but we settled on Aka-Oni simply cos it had the longest queue. Ah yes.... we adopted the Herd Mentality and this time round, the Herd proved right :)

There were a few choices of how you would like your Octopus Balls done, we went for the spicy sauce and ...... Yuuuuuummmmmm......


Bad picture cos it was close to 0 degrees outside and we were freezing our a$es off and the moment I removed my hands from my gloves to take a camera shot, my fingers would freeze up. It was a street brawl between good picture of food vs hands need for warmth..... hands won...


Aka-oni Takoyaki
Somewhere along Dotonbori...
Can't miss it, the stall with the red devils is way too prominent...

Dining in Japan - An Introductory Video

Here's a really funny clip i found on YouTube about dining in Japan. It seriously cracked me up and we figured we would have some fun in Japan by following exactly how they drink in this video clip. Enjoy!

Ramen @ Omotesando

01 March 2009 11:30 (Sunday)

Right... Sometime during my holiday in Japan, i figured i would have a problem with my blog due to the eatery names being in Japanese. This would be the first of my problems. The Japanese character is rather similar to Chinese and i figured the words at the end are Fire and Mountain but i cannot figure out what's the word in the middle. As such, i shall henceforth call this Ramen Eatery the Mountain Fire Ramen Stall.

Now, the Mountain Fire Ramen Stall is located along Omotesando which is near Harajuku. If you were to stand at the opposite side of the road from the Omotesando Hills Shopping Mall and face the mall, you should then turn left, walk about 134 paces then turn left again, you should face an alley, walk another 23 paces and the below scene should greet you....


At this point, i certainly hope you did not stop at the earlier paragraph, hopped on a plane to Japan and followed my instructions cause i doubt that was correct. General directions are correct, just not too sure about the number of paces....

Again, it was Kevin and Pauline that brought us to this relatively obscure ramen eatery but boy was the ramen good! The weather outside was about 4 degrees and it was drizzling and that Oh so tasty Soup ramen certainly helped warm up the body in the most wonderful way...


Just look at the soup..... yes, it's as tasty as it looks! Mountain Fire Ramen stall serves their pork separate from the soup rather than dumping everything in. Idea is for you to decide how much and when you want to mix the pork into the soup. I'm sure there's a highly logical explanation as to why this is so but i decided i would leave the chefs to serve the long queue of people in and outside the eatery rather than have him figure out what i am trying to say to them...


The bowl with the green stuff is actually Dou Miao vegetable with rice below. No sauce, no condiments.... just Dou Miao, Seaweed and Japanese rice. So simple yet so nice. The Gyoza was to die for! Skin was super crispy and the meat was awesomely tasty!


Another shot of the ramen.... u can't possibly tell me u aren't salivating yet....


Looking at these pictures certainly bring back wonderful memories. If only i could have this for dinner tonight.....

Mountain Fire Ramen
Somewhere in Omotesando