Genji-soba — Local services in Osaka

The food was good and felt authentic. The service, however, was just okay. We were a group of six, including one eleven-month-old infant. They asked us to leave the stroller outside in the rain, which we obliged to.

The restaurant had a traditional, local vibe that we enjoyed. We ordered soba noodles with tempura for some of us, while the rest chose chicken and scallion soba noodles or fried tofu soba noodles. We opted for 100% buckwheat (gluten-free) options. The tempura was excellent, and the soba noodles were equally impressive. The rest of our group rated their dishes as good too.

What stood out, though, was the staff’s demeanor—it was hard to tell if they were in a good or bad mood. As we were leaving, my eleven-month-old daughter started walking (more like wobbling) and instinctively grabbed a wall poster for support. Without hesitation, a staff member yelled "No, no!" at her and made a gesture as if to hit her hand. As a father, I was fine with the verbal correction, but the near-hitting motion caught me off guard.

I immediately offered to pay for any damage and asked them to consider why they’d raise their voice and make such a gesture toward an eleven-month-old baby. It took a while for the staff member to apologize, leaving me unsure again about their mood that day.

This is our eighth day in Japan, and across Tokyo, Nara, and Kyoto, we’ve experienced nothing but exceptional friendliness from everyone—except here. Perhaps we caught the staff on an off day. Other customers might have better luck visiting when they’re in a...

Coeliac friendly soba and tempura, and possibly other dishes.

The soba is nice and the broth too. The tempura is amazing!! So crunchy.

Note that coeliac friendly tempura is only available for dinner service. Note also not all the food is gluten free or coeliac friendly, you do need to specify, but it explains on the menu. Coeliac friendly dishes cost around 250JPY extra.

Menus are available in English and they explain the different types of noodles and the measure they take for coeliac friendly.

One tiny hiccup in our experience - when we ordered the cold soba tempura set, we both received hot soba. We initially thought we had ordered wrong so we just ate it, but upon reviewing the menu we realised we had definitely pointed at the cold soba set. I’m not sure how we ended up with hot soba. Having said that, our Japanese is very poor so we could have missed some information or misunderstood a question.

It was still delicious, we just prefer cold soba.

Thank you for creating yummy coeliac safe foods!!

I recommend this place if in Osaka. It is also close...

I did not think I would have the pleasure of having a gluten free soba experience in Japan, but in comes Genji-soba to fulfil the need I didn't even know I had!

The menu clearly states to tell them you are a Coeliac and when we did, the team took my request VERY seriously assuring me that my food would be prepared separately, using separate utensils and new water and everything; they are VERY aware of cross-contamination and have gone out of their way to continue to learn and develop their practices with the ongoing feedback and questions they receive from travellers.

The meal itself was so good. The noodles were soft, but chewy and my non-coeliac husband really liked them! We got a hot and a cold soba to have the best of both worlds and honestly wished we'd have had time to go back a second time.

They do not lose any stars for this, as I totally understand, but they do not have gluten free tempura for lunch so if you're after tempura and you're a Coeliac; make sure you plan a dinner rendezvous instead of lunch like we...