Friday, October 31, 2008

Gyoza no Osho, Namba



Tucked in behind Namba Hips Pachinko Parlour to the left is an unassuming branch of the Japanese gyoza chain store "Osho." Osho is incredibly cheap, and does a variety of Chinese dishes, including a great mapo dofu, sweet and sour pork, fried rice, and massive set menu items. They vary a fair bit from store to store, some of them lay on the chili nice and thick, some places verge on bland, but they always have chili oil amongst their sides if the dish needs spicing up.



The staff were two pretty young Japanese girls, and they were very helpful and efficient when we placed our order and paid. We now have a "pointo cado" for this Gyoza no Osho. How nice. The sides included pepper, salt, shoyu, gyoza sauce, chili oil and chili sauce. The main ply of their trade is gyoza, so the sides are geared toward making your own gyoza sauce in the wide flat little bowls that they have under a little dust cover to the side. The atmosphere was clean, the lighting was soft, but the music was ridiculous, frantic, keyboard instrumental music.

I have tried the Osho "stamina" ramen on a previous occasion at the Tennoji branch of Osho, and it had a lot of tomato, cabbage and carrots in it, and I didn't really rate it that highly, so when I ordered the Kotteri Ramen, I didn't expect anything amazing. And rightly so. It was an unusal ramen, at best. The broth was so thick it was almost like sauce rather than soup. It was flavoursome, savory, but a bit oily and the body was bordering on unpleasantly viscous. I didn't end up finishing the broth, which is unheard of for me.



The toppings were very ordinary too. The sliced pork came from a packet, the preserved bamboo shoots were a bit tough, but the long onion tops were fresh, and it came with a nice big dollop of chili/garlic paste on top. What was extraordinary though, was that the noodles were either hand made, or failing that, very, very good packet ramen noodles. They had a perfect texture and remained tender, yet al dente until the last bite.



These gyoza were incredible, the dough was fine, and the bases crispy. Better than I have had at other Gyoza no Osho. For ¥500, you'd be hard pressed to find better ramen. So, the verdict is: go for the ramen, but stay for the gyoza.

Broth - 2.5/5
Toppings - 2/5
Noodles - 4/5
Atmosphere - 2/5
Service - 3.5/5

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