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 guide : Okonomiyaki in osaka

Well, I know okonomiyaki comes from Osaka and well, during my trip I ate a lot of food, so much that I nearly don’t have stomach to chow down an okonomiyaki.

Okay, during this trip I only went to one okonomiyaki shop as my mum isn’t a fan of it and on other times, we were to full to eat them anyway.

download the map here

So let’s go:

The restaurant that I went to isn’t the mizuno that’s famous and popular among tourist, it was Ajinoya which has a long queue during dinner or lunch hour, so we went for an early dinner, about 5-ish?

Well, most of the patrons are locals which means I can safely assume that this shop serves authentic yummy okonomiyaki?

You can get to ajinoya through exit 14 of namba station. you will pass by a convenience store (family mart) and then kinryu ramen (you can spot the dragon). Turn in when you see the dragon (kinryu ramen) and ajinoya is along that stretch. very near.

Okay, first we ordered doteyaki which is beef sinew cooked in miso (?) I don’t really know the translation for it, but this is really good and even my mum who doesn’t really eat beef says it is good and even finished it. This came with bits and pieces of konnyaku and I really wished I ordered seconds for this.

Then we ordered tonpeiyaki (bottom right in the picture below) which is probably not very popular in other parts of Japan and across the world but apparently is a staple dish in osaka and they hail it as the appetizer to eat before okonomiyaki? I didn’t see restaurants serving it in tokyo though. Cultural difference? To put it simply, tonpeiyaki is just meat rolled in egg which I thought was normal.

For our okos, we ordered a special and a Mochi cheese. Both were really good. You can add bonito flakes and seaweed according to your liking. ^^

Saw people ordering the yakisoba though. Thought that might be good too.

the shopfront

download the map here

the shop website here

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Cheap Kobe beef: 2000 yen Kobe Beef

2000 yen Kobe beef

There's lots of food in kuromon ichiba located at Nipponbashi which is like one station away from Namba and Nagahoribashi. It is a good place for breakfast (lots of affordable sushi/ sashimi/ crabs compared to restaurants and even Tokyo Tsukiji fish market).

Kuromon ichiba sells a wide variety of stuffs, it's practically like a shopping street with shops selling household items, cutlery, snacks, cooked food, seafood and so on and the prices there are cheaper than some other places in Osaka, so it's worth checking this place out if you are visiting Osaka.

I have written a post previously on my Kobe beef experience in Kobe and while that meal (a set) set me back at more than 6000 yen per person, Kobe beef at kuromon ichiba is cheaper by a lot (rice and soup not included). 

Maruzen at kuromon ichiba sells Kobe beef for 2000 yen (SGD23/ less than 20 USD) and while the beef portion was obviously a smaller and thinner version than that of a restaurant that specializes in Kobe beef, it is enough. The marbling on the beef looks good and there's like about 7-8 pieces of beef for one serving which is very worth the money that you are paying for imo.



We ordered one portion each and my mum loved it too. 


Kuromon ichiba map here
Map of the shop here

Japan travel guide: Osaka

Americamura icedog

Well, there’s this village called Amerikamura (aka amemura) which means America village in Osaka which is near shinsaibashi and also walkable from namba.

If you come from western countries then maybe this won’t be special to you but this place is often touted as the harajuku of osaka which is not the case imo.

Amemura is boring imo they sell mostly western t shirts (Adidas anyone) and big hip hop style clothes. Is this Japan’s perception of America? I have no idea.

While you might not have anything to buy from there, it is a good place for people watching since people’s dressing are quite flashy there but since it was raining when I went there wasn’t many people out and about and hence I only went there to eat.

Other than having various takoyaki stalls (more about them in another post), amemura is home to the ganso ice dog which claimed to be the first stall in Japan selling ice dog which is a fried hotdog bun with milk ice cream in the middle.

Sounds normal right? I really wanted to try it though my mum was skeptical about it but this really exceeded my expectations (well always expect low then the possibility of you being satisfied is higher lol).

I always thought that the bread is fried and the icecream would melt real fast (it probably would if you went in summer) but the bread is fried and when you first bite into the bread, it’s hot and crispy crispy and the inside that has contact with the milk ice cream is soft and cold. You might think that this won’t match but nooo, I thought the flavors and temperature and all might clash at first but this is really good. Only the ice cream that’s with contact with the bread melted and the ice cream (A pity that it’s so hard to find good milk ice cream in Singapore, well unless they have like Japan fairs or something.). The rest of the ice cream remains cold and in solid form and when you bite into the ice dog, it’s just so satisfying I really wished I ordered one more for myself since it’s only 300 yen.

I think the shop also sell milk ice cream from rokko farm which is a famous farm in Kobe. I had the rokko farm ice cream in Kobe and it was absolutely delicious. The one used in icedog seemed to come from Hokkaido though but still super good.

Map here.