Wandering Fel

What? The creepy clown seems to be a popular endorsement product as butter cookies in its shape has been declared as no. 1 to buy product in Osaka (at least in this souvenir store). 

Turns out the creepy clown has been in Osaka since 1950 (oh my gawd, he's old?). His name is Kuidaore Taro and he was originally brought to the Cui-daore restaurant as a marketing tool to bring more customers into the shop. The clown is supposedly has an expression of "eating too much" [okay, that's pretty weird] as what his name, "Kuidaore", means in Japanese. 

But the clown's face is literally plastered in nearly all food products from cookies to cakes to puddings in this Dotonbori store really. After knowing the meaning of his name, isn't this an irony? LOL.

The takoyaki restaurant is called Bikkuri Tako-yaki and you can see that the restaurant has two lines of queue. One is for the diners who want to dine in while the one outside where we were queueing at the moment is for the take-away takoyaki. All restaurants in Dotonbori seems to have adopted this kind of arrangement in queueing. 

You must order takoyaki by boxes. One box has 8 balls of takoyaki inside. We ordered the original takoyaki (which supposedly served with original sauce). While taste-wise the takoyaki is nice (and piping hot! be careful!), the filling is very gooey. I wonder if it's because the Japanese likes gooey filling or the chef took them out from the grill too soon. LOL.

It seems that my friend did not lie to me about takoyaki being a popular dish in Osaka. All souvenir stores that we entered in Dotonbori seems to sell one thing in common, the takoyaki keychains. Hahaha. 

A few steps to the left from Bikkuri Tako-yaki, I spotted the shop of famous egg tarts from Macau, Lord Stow's Bakery. While I have been to Macau twice in my life, I have not had the chance to try out these egg tarts and it's funny to be able to find them here. So, is that guy on the billboard, Mr Stow?

Lord Stow's Bakery in Dotonbori offers egg tarts in so many different flavours. But since I have never tried any of this before, I decided to stick with the original egg tart. 

The egg tart is yummy and my travelling buddy said the taste is pretty similar to the one she tried in Macau (which supposedly the original one). One thing that I keep on thinking if I ever come back to Osaka in future is to stay at one of the hotels located near to Dotonbori so that it will be easy for me to buy all of the food here. LOL. #greedyme

Even though some restaurants in Dotonbori opens for 24 hours, it is best to go here at night. Dotonbori area is livelier at night with all the LED lights and stuff. 

You don't have to worry about getting lost in Dotonbori and the street is easy to navigate. When you see Starbucks Coffee (or Tsutaya in Japanese), you are standing at the main area of Dotonbori.

While I was at Tsutaya, I decided to get for myself a tumblr because Osaka's tumblr looks awesome. 

Right across Tsutaya, you will see a restaurant with a huge crab plastered on its billboard. The restaurant has a super long queue on its entrance, it kinda makes me think twice whether to join the queue or to explore other vendors. It turns out to be the most popular crab restaurant in Dotonbori,  Dotombori Honten. 

Dotombori Honten offers a variety of crab dishes and Kani Suki (crab hot pot). The problem is, it is nearly impossible to get a table without any reservation if you only reached Dotonbori around 6PM-ish. Knowing the fact that the restaurant is very popular, Dotombori Honten also offers a take-away shop in front of the restaurant with equally long queue. The queue was worth it though because the grilled crabs are very very delicious.   

I suggest you should get some food items from the other restaurants while your friend is queueing for the crab so that both of you can munch on something while waiting for your turn at Dotombori Honten. This can only work if you are not a solo-traveller, I suppose.