Read Online Rice, Noodle, Fish by Matt Goulding - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Matt Goulding
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beef has made an appearance all night, but by the time Nakamura flips the steak, three more orders come in. Suddenly, the entire restaurant is happily working its way through these heartbreaking steaks, and Iâm left staring at my bill.
âAre you sure you want to leave?â Nakamura asks, and before I can say anything, he cuts another steak.
ç±³ 麺 é
Of course, there are things to do in Osaka that donât involve fried meat and torched tuna and foie gras masquerading as beef. That is to say, there are nonedible activities here. You can, for example, take in Aleutian otters, Panamanian porcupine fish, and a whale shark the size of a small school bus at the Kaiyukan Aquarium, home to one of the largest collections of sea creatures in the world. You can visit one of Osakaâs many awesome and offbeat museums: see rural life transposed onto urban at the Museum of Japanese Farmhouses, witness the worldâs largest collection of sake drinking vessels at the Museum of National Ceramics, or personalize your own Cup Noodles at the Museum of Instant Ramen. Or spend a day soaking your bones at Spa World, the Epcot Center of onsen , where revelers can travel through space and time to bathe in Caprian grottos, Greek medicinal baths, and the Trevi Fountain.
You can give your wallet a workout for the ages. Up near Umeda, youâll find one of Japanâs greatest concentrations of department store awesomeness, including a thirteen-story Hankyu that could occupy the better part of a lifetime to fully explore. (CliffsNotes: Head straight to the basement and you will learn more about the beauty of Japanese food in an hour than in a week of restaurant eating.) Stroll the tree-lined lanes of Midosuji, Osakaâs largest and leafiest boulevard, and dream dreams of Armani and Dior. (Or do what I do: dream of all the Omi beef and cod milt you can buy with the money youâre not spending on clothing, purses, and other inedible extravagances.) If sprawling commercial centers and polished boulevards arenât your thing, try an afternoon at Tachibana-dori, Orange Street, retail fantasy for the hipster set, comprising a thousand meters of antique shops, boutiques, and pour-over dispensaries, all of which looks to be curated expressly for your Instagram feed.
The blue-lit backstreets of Dotonbori
(Michael Magers, lead photographer)
But ultimately, if youâve come to Osaka, youâve come to eat, drink, and soak up as much of the bonhomie as possible. And the best way to do that is through a good old-fashioned crawl, in search of the soul of kuidaore , a slow, prodding, improvised evening of binge eating, drinking, and socializing that pushes you, your companions, and the city itself to the breaking point.
On my last night in Osaka, Yuko Suzuki rejoins the rabble, determined to lead us to parts unknown across the nationâs kitchen.
The crawl starts where most good crawls end: in a dank basement filled with sake. Shimada Shoten is primarily a sake distributor, with a storefront stocked with a selection of Japanâs finest nihonshu (the owners tell me they have personally visited over 250 breweries to build out their list), but drop down a secret staircase and you land in the tasting room, with transport barrels and half-drunk bottles scattered everywhere. A group of men who look like they havenât seen daylight all week herald our arrival with a chorus of grunts.
Shimada operates on the honor system. Choose your glass from a stable of beautiful ceramic sake vessels, pick your poison from a series of refrigerators, andat the end of the night, tally up all the damage. Letâs go.
We warm up with a sparkling sake from Hiroshima, then move on to a junmai daiginjo from Ishikawa Prefecture, one of Japanâs best sake-producing regions. You can taste its greatness, a cool shower of stone fruit and spring flowers. One refrigerator houses koshu , aged sake, and we take our chances with a
âAre you sure you want to leave?â Nakamura asks, and before I can say anything, he cuts another steak.
ç±³ 麺 é
Of course, there are things to do in Osaka that donât involve fried meat and torched tuna and foie gras masquerading as beef. That is to say, there are nonedible activities here. You can, for example, take in Aleutian otters, Panamanian porcupine fish, and a whale shark the size of a small school bus at the Kaiyukan Aquarium, home to one of the largest collections of sea creatures in the world. You can visit one of Osakaâs many awesome and offbeat museums: see rural life transposed onto urban at the Museum of Japanese Farmhouses, witness the worldâs largest collection of sake drinking vessels at the Museum of National Ceramics, or personalize your own Cup Noodles at the Museum of Instant Ramen. Or spend a day soaking your bones at Spa World, the Epcot Center of onsen , where revelers can travel through space and time to bathe in Caprian grottos, Greek medicinal baths, and the Trevi Fountain.
You can give your wallet a workout for the ages. Up near Umeda, youâll find one of Japanâs greatest concentrations of department store awesomeness, including a thirteen-story Hankyu that could occupy the better part of a lifetime to fully explore. (CliffsNotes: Head straight to the basement and you will learn more about the beauty of Japanese food in an hour than in a week of restaurant eating.) Stroll the tree-lined lanes of Midosuji, Osakaâs largest and leafiest boulevard, and dream dreams of Armani and Dior. (Or do what I do: dream of all the Omi beef and cod milt you can buy with the money youâre not spending on clothing, purses, and other inedible extravagances.) If sprawling commercial centers and polished boulevards arenât your thing, try an afternoon at Tachibana-dori, Orange Street, retail fantasy for the hipster set, comprising a thousand meters of antique shops, boutiques, and pour-over dispensaries, all of which looks to be curated expressly for your Instagram feed.
The blue-lit backstreets of Dotonbori
(Michael Magers, lead photographer)
But ultimately, if youâve come to Osaka, youâve come to eat, drink, and soak up as much of the bonhomie as possible. And the best way to do that is through a good old-fashioned crawl, in search of the soul of kuidaore , a slow, prodding, improvised evening of binge eating, drinking, and socializing that pushes you, your companions, and the city itself to the breaking point.
On my last night in Osaka, Yuko Suzuki rejoins the rabble, determined to lead us to parts unknown across the nationâs kitchen.
The crawl starts where most good crawls end: in a dank basement filled with sake. Shimada Shoten is primarily a sake distributor, with a storefront stocked with a selection of Japanâs finest nihonshu (the owners tell me they have personally visited over 250 breweries to build out their list), but drop down a secret staircase and you land in the tasting room, with transport barrels and half-drunk bottles scattered everywhere. A group of men who look like they havenât seen daylight all week herald our arrival with a chorus of grunts.
Shimada operates on the honor system. Choose your glass from a stable of beautiful ceramic sake vessels, pick your poison from a series of refrigerators, andat the end of the night, tally up all the damage. Letâs go.
We warm up with a sparkling sake from Hiroshima, then move on to a junmai daiginjo from Ishikawa Prefecture, one of Japanâs best sake-producing regions. You can taste its greatness, a cool shower of stone fruit and spring flowers. One refrigerator houses koshu , aged sake, and we take our chances with a
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