Kuromon ichiba - kuromon sanpei

Tokyo has Tsukiji market and Osaka has Kuromon Ichiba (Kuromon Market) for your seafood fix. Kuromon ichiba is the place for affordable, fresh and cheap seafood in Osaka.

Located at Nipponbashi (one station away from Namba and Nagahoribashi (where I stayed at last year). Kuromon Ichiba is easily accessible and the market is so near the train station (totally love it, btw I went back again another day cos we can't get enough of the seafood there). Kuromon market link 

Kuromon sanpei is perhaps the most popular shop at kuromon ichiba. It specializes in seafood and they are sold in very affordable prices (at least compared to restaurants and Tokyo tsukiji market). A set of ootoro - fatty tuna belly (4 pieces is probably only about 1600 yen; it's about 700-800 yen per piece in tsukiji fish market and other sushi restaurants, so yup totally worth it. Kuromon Sanpei link 

What's worth mentioning is probably the gigantic boiled chilled crab which is like less than 3000 yen and yet so satisfying. My mum loves this a lot and she couldn't stop eating it. We even got like 2 of it the 2nd time we went.

The miso soup with lobsters is about 1600 yen but it is worth every yen cos it has like clams and lobsters in it.


You can also get oysters, sea urchins and so on and even kaisen don from the shop. Although the prices are cheaper than those of a restaurants, I still spent like 10k yen there or more cos we ate like a lot. Hence be mindful and don't over eat while you are there alright?

Of course, there's more to kuromon ichiba than just kuromon sanpei, I had oysters at some stall, soymilk as well (another post in future).

Kuromon market link 
Kuromon Sanpei link 

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Japan travel guides: Ichiran Ramen

Well well well, the famed ichiran ramen with partition that separate you from the other diners so you won’t feel embarrassed getting stared at while you slurp your ramen.

Ichiran is hugely popular in Japan and among tourists and it’s not hard to see why. Firstly, they have branches in Tokyo - shibuya, shinjuku etc. The one I went to this time was located at osaka, namba dotonbori street and it’s located right next to Don Quixote (another fav spots of mine, more of this in another post alright?) and open for 24 hours (night owls say yes for ramen as supper!)

Dotonbori is located very near namba and nipponbashi and is within walking distance from shinsaibashi and nagahoribashi.

The whole stretch of dotonbori is full of food ranging from crabs, kushi katsu, yakiniku, okonomiyaki, ramen and all. You will definitely be able to find something that you like. Some shops open till late and some open for 24 hours as well, just be sure to enquire before going.

Ok back to ichiran. This 24 hours ichiran is always crowded (at least when I’m there) and when I finally got to eat my ichiran it was when I went for the third time and I went at 9pm, there’s still a long queue outside despite the fact that it’s raining. Everyone was queuing with their umbrellas and all. Thank God though, that the turnover rate is high we didn’t waited very long, probably around 20-30 mins?

While you are queuing the shop will have people giving you pieces of paper for you to write how you will like your ramen to be - less oil, more oil, firm noodles, soft noodles and so on.

There’s display outside on their bring-home ramen that you can cook yourself. 

Then you go into the shop and buy tickets from the machine while queuing again then when you are seated, just pass the ticket and the  customization paper to the shop person. Oh the normal ramen dont include egg I think. I have to get the egg from a different ticket.

As we customized our own noodles, each noodles taste different (including soup, some are spicier and thicker and saltier while some just taste super diluted) but my mum and I enjoyed our noodles and we are satisfied with it.

More info on ichiran here

Map of Dotonbori branch here

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