Anniversary Blog 22: Eat Osaka Cooking Class and Nara
It’s funny how a “chill” day can still be full of adventure. We woke up later than we had been for the past week because today we were actually staying in Osaka. We had breakfast at the hotel. I haven’t really discussed it yet, but breakfast in Japanese “western” hotels is interesting. It usually consists of an odd mix of a continental breakfast and a japanese brunch. We spent a lot of our mornings eating salads and sushi alongside our croissants and eggs. Not going to lie, having a salad in the morning, not the worst thing for your stomach. We felt light but full most of the time to start our adventures.
We hopped a train and headed towards the middle of the city, because that morning we had a cooking class booked with Eat Osaka. This class was different than many, because we did not meet our host at some sterile kitchen at a cooking school, but were invited into a cozy home by our instructor for the day, Yasuko.
As our group gathered around the table, Yasuko talked about the regional dishes we would be learning. The other reason this was a unique class for us is because we weren’t trying to master rolling sushi, or crafting the perfect ramen, we were learning how to make Osaka comfort food.
Yasuka guided us through making handmade udon noodles with a nice savory broth, grilled yakitori (like we had in piss alley back in Tokyo) with a sweet sauce, and an Osaka street fair version of okonomiyaki (rolled in two chop sticks instead of pancake style like in Hiroshima).
We were a little clumsy, but Yasuko showed a ton of patience and everything we made turned out great.
After the cooking class, we were led over to Tower Knives Osaka to get a tour of the store and learn about the craft of hand forging knives in Osaka. They showed us some of the techniques, and how they hand sharpened every knife as well.
Anne and I both bought some hand forged and sharpened Japanese kitchen knives for home. Truly unique souvenirs, and the proprietor made us promise that the knives would not be for display. They wanted their knives to be used for their purpose: making delicious food. Anne and I both got knives with our family names on them, and I even got a gift for my cousin Chef Singfield who had just opened his first restaurant and had that engraved as well. Even the engraving was done by hand with a hammer and chisel.
In the afternoon we took a short train ride outside of Osaka to visit the city of Nara. We walked through the Nara-machi Neighborhood and checked out Gangoji Temple. Then we headed up to check out Kasugataisha Shrine.
Nara is well known for its unique deer, and those things really are everywhere. As you walked through Nara Park, in the neighborhoods, at the shrines. Everywhere. And man did they know how to get tourists. They have little spots where you can get bags of special crackers to feed the deer, and the deer can see you coming a mile away. We laughed too much as we watched people get freaked out by the amount of animals that would surround them as they started trying to parse out their snacks. The signage warning guests about the deer was also hilarious as well.
We caught a beautiful sunset from Nigatsudo Temple, a smaller temple in the east part of the Todai-ji Temple Complex, and it was the perfect ending to our chill day. We tried to enter the larger, more famous hall at Todai-ji that houses the giant Buddha, but we were too late to enter, so we made our way back to the train station and back to Osaka. The entire Nara area was beautiful, and had we known there was so much to do that we missed out on, including from what I understand is some epic sake experiences, we would have devoted far more time to the city.
On our way back to Osaka, we had our first real mini-crisis of the trip: we left our bag with our camera, GoPro and all of our photos and videos since Tokyo on the train! This is kind of amazing that this is the first time this had happened, considering at that point we had visited over 10 countries and dozens of cities by plane, train, bus, and car. Luckily for us, we were able to jump back on a train going the other way (yay Japan Rail Pass), and the wonderful workers back at Nara station had our bag waiting for us when we arrived. When we got back to Osaka, grateful that the friendly and honest nature of Japanese workers was not overexaggerated, we celebrated with the food of our forefathers… McDonalds! When in Japan, try the Ebi (shrimp) Filet-O, it’s pretty tasty.
Our last full day in Japan started off as a prep day. Sometimes while we were traveling we would have to burn a day to make sure that our next leg of the journey was scheduled out and we were prepared. But then we remembered that something was missing… We had never technically gotten our Kobe beef experience. We had tried some here and there, at stalls, in restaurants, but while we were in Kobe we never found the time to really sit down and experience it the right way.
As we explored Osaka, it became clear that they weren’t going to have much luck finding the beef here either. What we did luck out and find is an equally delicious regional beef, Matsusaka. We checked out Matsusakagyu Yakiniku M to get our grilled meat fix, and it did not disappoint. We were shown to our own private area with a grill in the middle of our table. Next we were presented with an assortment of different cuts of the tasty beef and given a short explanation on how to grill each cut for maximum tastiness. The experience did not disappoint and we were able to leave the country in peace.
Japan is an AMAZING country, and I cannot wait to go back one day. There is so much to experience, the people are warm and friendly and the food is incredible. Even if we never went back to the cities we explored this time, there is still so much of the country to play in. Japan is roughly the size of California, but it is incredible how many unique places and cuisines that small area has created over its thousands of years of history. If you ever get the chance to go, make sure you carve out weeks to soak in all the culture it has to offer.
For us though, it was time to hop on a plane. Sayonara Japan, it’s time to check out your neighbor to the west… South Korea!
