If You Only Have One Meal in Osaka… Have It Here!

Mar 27, 2025

Friends here call Shuhari the Best Little Restaurant in Osaka.

I couldn’t agree more. Except maybe I would say that it is the Best Little Restaurant Anywhere.

Shuhari is a soba noodle restaurant. That’s what they specialize in, soba, or buckwheat, noodles.

At Shuhari, you can order them chilled; then you personally dip them into a sensational hot broth (above) that might be filled with mushrooms and chicken; or you can order your soba noodles to come heated in a series of different broths.

Here’s what makes Shuhari the Best Little Restaurant Anywhere:

+ The best beer we have had in Japan and it’s only available in draft format in a select, few restaurants. And this is one of them.

The beer is Suntory’s, The Premium Malt. It has mild flavor, a marvelous finish, a throat-coating richness. It is my favorite new beer.

+ The best tempura I’ve ever had anywhere (above). Lightly coated, perfectly fried, delicate tasting vegetables, including taro root, mushrooms, bell pepper and shrimp. And they bring a tempura dipping sauce that is so good you will want to drink it.

+ The best caffeine-free tea that I have ever had — soba tea — which is poured here until you can’t drink any more.

It has rich, malted barley-like toasted flavor, but it is NOT malted barley, it is made from ground buckwheat. Absolutely soul-soothing.

No sugar. No caffeine. A perfect beverage.

+ Order as much as you can eat, have two glasses of Suntory, The Premium Malt, and lunch will top out at about $25 per person, no tax added, no tip required.

I repeat: $25 for a perfect, filling, memorable lunch.

Do not pass Go, do NOT collect $200… Go Directly to Shuhari on your first day in Osaka.. because you will want to be able to return one more time before you leave town.

Shuhari: For directions or to see the menu, go to https://shuhari.site

They do not take reservations. We stood in line for about 10 minutes before being seated; it would have been worth waiting even half-an-hour, the food’s that good..

Time out for a coffee-hit, you say?

We tried two more independent coffee bars today, each featuring meticulously made pour-over, and espresso-based, coffees.

LILO

They feature beans from 20 different countries, including Mexico, Ethiopia, Indonesia, East Timor, Costa Rica, Colombia, Guatemala, China, Tanzania, and Kenya. Each roasted to a different degree of color, and wetted with filtered water. The espresso drinks are made with medium-roasted, Brazilian beans.

To learn more about Lilo Coffee Roasters, or to get directions, go to

https://coffee.liloinveve.com

Yard

That's Yard’s barista above (left) and Diego Alejandro Dalton on the right, El Salvador’s Ambassador to Japan, who is visiting Osaka as part of his official duty to promote El Salvador coffee.

Almost all the coffees served here are made with El Salvador beans. I found the coffees mild, balanced, and terrific.

The day also provided a lot of colorful imagery….

In no particular order, some of my favorite shots from a walk through different parts of town, including Dotombori, also the “American” ‘hood featuring dozens of vintage clothing stores, and the Osaka Kizu Fish Market.

(My understanding that if you view photos in this Substack template and double-click any photo, it will blow up to fill your screen, giving you a chance to better reflect on the image. Maybe try it…?)

Here’s something I’ve not seen elsewhere… compressed croissants (below). They take legitimate, fresh, delicious croissants and flatten them in a press so that they’re the thickness of a vinyl record….