Takoume Honten ★ 4.8
Operating since 1844, this Dotonbori institution serves the city's most storied oden: daikon, octopus, ganmodoki in unchanged ancient dashi.
Order: ['Tako kanroni', 'Daikon oden', 'Kinchaku']
History
Oden arrived in Osaka from Tokyo in the Edo era; Osakans renamed it kanto-daki (cooked-in-the-Kanto-style) and over a century thinned the broth to the lighter dashi-soy base canonical to Kansai. Takoume Honten in Dotonbori, founded 1844, is Japan's oldest oden restaurant and is widely cited as the city's defining shop.
Common allergens: Soy, Fish, Egg
Make it at home
Ingredients
- 2 litres dashi stock
- 100ml light soy sauce (usukuchi)
- 3 tablespoons mirin
- 1 tablespoon sake
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 large daikon, peeled and cut into 3cm rounds
- 6 eggs, hard-boiled and peeled
- 300g konnyaku, scored and cut into triangles
- 8 assorted oden fishcakes (chikuwa, hanpen, satsuma-age)
- 300g beef tendon (gyusuji), pre-boiled 60 minutes and skewered
- 4 small new potatoes, peeled
- Karashi (Japanese mustard), to serve
Method
- Score a cross on one face of each daikon round. Parboil the rounds 12 minutes in lightly salted water until starting to turn translucent at the edges; drain.
- Blanch the konnyaku 2 minutes in boiling water; drain.
- Combine the dashi, soy sauce, mirin, sake and salt in a wide shallow pot and bring to a low simmer.
- Add the daikon, eggs, konnyaku and beef tendon. Simmer covered 60 minutes at a tremble.
- Add the potatoes; simmer 30 minutes more.
- Add the fishcakes 15 minutes before serving; they only need to warm through and absorb a little broth.
- Rest off the heat 30 minutes (ideally overnight in the fridge, reheated the next day; oden is better on the second day).
- Serve in shallow bowls with a ladle of broth, plus a dab of karashi mustard on the side of each plate.
Tip from the editors. Use light usukuchi soy sauce, never the dark Tokyo variant; the broth should look almost the colour of tea, not coffee, or it stops being Osaka oden and becomes Tokyo oden.
Where to eat osaka oden (kanto-daki)
Osaka oden (Kanto-daki) in Osaka
Hozenji Yokocho Izakaya Strip ★ 4.3
The lantern-lit stone alley parallel to Dotonbori: moss-covered walls, traditional izakayas, and the Fudo-son temple giving the alley its resonance.
Signature drink: House sake by the tokkuri
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