It's time for Kansai region food tour

I've come to Dotonbori region of Osaka, Japan

Now, there are different words to live by, depending on the city you live in

and different ways to come to ruin

In Tokyo, it's the amount of money you spend on shoes,

In Kyoto they say it's the amount of money you spend on fashionable clothes,

And here in Osaka, they say it's the amount of money you spend on delicious food.

They actually have a special word for it,

KUIDAORE

And that literally means you ruin spend on what you are offered to eat

Now if I were to think which way to go of those 3,

Definitely "death by food" is the option I would pick,

So let's go and see, what they have here.

Come along and we'll try some of the delicious food

You'll find a lot to look at and enjoy Dotonbori

the moment you start walking down the canal

And definitely a lack of variety is not a problem they suffer from here

You name it, they've got it

Seafood restaurant,

KUSHI-KATSU,which is an irresistible type of deep fried stick food by the way.

Sweets, of course RAMEN, and many more.

But for me, I thought I'd go for a classic.

TAKOYAKI, or octopus balls for the uninitiated,

is a street food born in KANSAI region, specifically in Osaka

To tell you the truth, I normally struggle to enjoy it,

But on this day, in the birth place of its popularity,

DOTONBORI finally got the flavors right

So this is the Octopus-wheat-flour-ball

It's very simple. Wheat, flour, octopus,

It has pickled ginger, bonito flakes on top,

Perhaps some mayonnaise, sometimes

And some SHOYU soya sauce spread on top

Which is super delicious

Now most important to this whole experience is that it must be fresh

I had my initial impression ruined for TAKOYAKI because I had it reheated

or purchased it and let it cool down

If you want those flavors to pop, you want to get it totally fresh like this,

And if you can absolutely find it like we did if you come to DOTONBORI

Let's check it out

Just, just as I'd hoped

Flavor is coming out so much

I not usually a fan of bonito flakes but....

with this flavor combination it works very very well

Totally guilty of loving mayonnaise

I have to reign this in

And it seems the Japanese have a love affair of it as well

It's a dangerous love affair. Dangerous, dangerous love affair

But almost impossible to resist

So of course, the form that we find DOTONBORI in today is not how it always was

The development started in the 1600s

With an enterprising business man who thought it would increase the commercial viability of the area

were he to expand the river

And it worked, since within 50 years, there were 3 KABUKI theaters

And 5 BUNRAKU theaters,

which are kind of puppet theaters

So when I say Osaka is Bohemian and colorful,

it definitely started a long time ago

Our food journey is of course not over

Not by far

We are, though, faced with a difficult question,

what next?

Sometimes abundance of choice is a curse more than a blessing

What do we choose?

When faced with a thousand choices, how will we make a decision?

Fear not, that's why I'm here

It's obvious what we should do.

All right, we're doing a little bit of sit down fair,

we're not just doing the street food via next to the canal, as lovely as that is,

I've come down here to try DOTONBORI's OKONOMIYAKI

And that is Japanese savory pancake.

Now there is a couple ways to have this, depending on type of city that you're in

So first of all you're going to order the ingredients which will be inside your pancake

And that would be something like, seafood.

or you're going to have beef, or pork or vegetables or a mix

And all those ingredients you will mix together

You make your delicious pancake

Maybe top it off with some mayonnaise,

and sauces along side as well

But they mix them together. That is distinct in Osaka

But when you go to Hiroshima, the ingredients will be layered.

as opposed to mixed together,

And addition to that, they will include some kind of noodle

which is a cool variety if you are into trying something different

So as I mentioned, there are quite a lot of flavors to choose from here,

I haven't had pork in a while and it so happens that it's one of my favorite

Actually when I was young, I used to live in a hobby farm,

My family raised pigs there among many other things

I get nostalgic for it sometimes but....

enough talk. Let's discuss these flavors

Fresh, fresh ingredients. Tasting that immediately

I went with the sweeter sauce since they had two options for that

which you put on

I'm enjoying that

What's not to like about pancakes

So if you have ever seen DOTONBORI on Instagram,

then this guy is probably showed up there

He is sort of you might say the unofficial mascot of the area

And he is associated with food as well.

He went up in 1935

He is associated with the company which makes POCKY

If you don't know what POCKY is, they are these delicious snack-able carbohydrate stick

that are dipped in different variety of flavors

From strawberry to Maccha

Just like Kit Kat has a lot of flavors here in Japan, so does POCKY

So if you do get a chance to come down to DOTONBORI, be sure to get a picture with GLICO MAN

because it's a long standing tradition

You think with all that TAKOYAKI and OKONOMIYAKI filling my belly,

I am satisfied....but...

That is until I pass a really good deal for some GYOZA

And there was one

It was about 500yen, about 5USD roughly,

For 6 and a beer,

And that was an offer I could not refuse

Also a great way to cap off a great day

The heavy lifting is done

The heavy chewing. Maybe that's more accurate

The food was fantastic. Really really good

I usually don't like TAKOYAKI. I like it when it's this fresh and this delicious

I don't often eat OKONOMIYAKI, that was fantastic. Really really good

Now, I'm showing next to this guy,

Shouting out for the art next to the canal

For the big portion of the canal, there are these murals all the way around

In fact I think an art that's been done on my friend's guitar from an artist down that way

Which is super cool

So if you're not into the foody thing but want to snap a few shots,

You will find some really good opportunities here

This was so much fun to me

I'm probably coming back to make more videos here

because I saw a bunch of seafood restaurants and I love seafood

especially crab

Thank you very much for watching

I hope to catch you in the next one

Take care up there, be safe

and that's all for now