551 Horai Honten — Restaurant in Osaka

4.3 stars

Their pork buns are delicious and it's hard to replicate the bun dough at home. The freshly steamed ones don't taste the same as those that have cooled down. They are best freshly steamed, of course! I believe the main branch makes them really well. Sometimes I felt like the branch where the bullet train is, ShinOsaka makes them in a rushed fashion.

Update: the last time I bought some, the person making them didn't have much experience. See the picture. The top was too bready and the bottom bread part was far too thin. Poor balance. Unfortunately you don't know who's making them on that day so sometimes if you get bad luck, this happens. The person must have been a beginner wrapper.

Friday at noon there was no lineup for Horai next to Rikuro's cheesecake shop at Shinosaka. If you go around 3 or 4 in the afternoon you may have to wait about 30 minutes.

The red bean ice bar was bought at another branch. If you only want to buy the popsicle you don't have to line up in the normal pork bun line. The popsicle was simple tasting and probably a nostalgic taste for some Japanese people. It's refreshing and not too rich which is good on a hot day

The barbecue pork bun salesbat the main branch don't start until 11:00 in the morning and quite often they're sold out before 12:00 or 1:00. On a slow or rainy day you may find some before 3:00. There's only one other branch that sells barbecued pork buns but that other branch sells out faster.

These pork buns have pork meat and loads of onions. No bamboo, shiitake, no green onions, no dried shrimp. It's really simple and a mild taste that anyone would like. The bun bread and filling are both a little sweet. If you try to make it at home, you'll notice that you need to add quite a lot of sugar to the dough, filling.

The restaurant was okay but I think this shops best items are pork buns, pork shumai, fried black sesame balls. Some other items were very standard in taste or overpriced. I recommend takeout. I feel the customer service is better in the takeout area rather than the seated restaurant sitting area. In the restaurant they seemed so busy stressed and rushed too much. Usually the takeout staff are almost impeccable in their customer service. It's impressive.

Each time I came here to this shop and wanted to buy barbecue buns or red bean buns here they were sold out! Apparently you can only get those at the shop here? Finally one day I lined up at 9:30 for sesame bean paste buns. Around 9:45 people started to line up. By 10am on a weekday, 20 people were in line as they opened their doors.

Sometimes you can get the items at department stores special events in Tokyo, like in Ikebukuro. The lineups are really long and there's a ticket system these days that makes it less painful to wait around.

The chilled meat bun set you can buy as a souvenir taste nice but not as fresh. Apparently you can even buy it online but I think it must be different.

The sweet and sour meatballs remind me if American Chinese food. They are good but no special wow factor about them either. For some reason they have to be eaten on the date of purchase. Their chimaki, Zhong zi, too... It should be eaten on the day they're bought

The shop ingredients is lard heavy, I think. The meat bun filling and pork shumai (almost the same filling) are quite greasy. This is why most people eat it with the Japanese mustard, to cut the oily taste.

The restaurant is pretty busy and it's quite popular. It's not a place you can sit and really relax and no elevators for those in a wheelchair or with strollers.

These pictures in this review were taken all on different occasions I...

Horai dumplings, after 10 years. The staff have gotten even friendlier, and the crowd has only grown. Is it worth waiting for? Absolutely. Both the shumai and the big dumplings are worth every minute in line.

It’s got the perfect cycle of an ideal eatery: dumplings are made inside, steamed on the spot, and consumed right away. To keep this level of freshness going for so long, the food has to be genuinely good—and it is.

What feels a little different between Korea and Japan is this: in Korea, once something is praised as “delicious,” countless copycats spring up overnight, and eventually the whole thing collapses. In Japan, similar shops may appear, but not in a flood—and even after 10 years, the original is still in the same place, serving the same taste.

That’s one of the reasons I love Japan. When, years or even decades later, nostalgia and longing bring me back, there’s comfort in finding it unchanged, right where it’s always been.

So thank you, Horai dumplings. See you...

On the ground floor is the take out counter which sells varieties of Shu mai and steamed dumplings. The restaurant upstairs offers a variety of Chinese dishes which are quite reasonably priced, though not quite authentic Chinese.

It’s quite popular with locals and tourists alike, and so it can be quite crowded. However, I’ve never had to wait for a table before. Once seated, you can pick from the "Grand Menu" which contains quite a variety of Chinese dishes.

I cannot fault the food as they are all tasty. Thing is, I am Chinese and I can taste the subtle differences between the real thing and what was being served. Nevertheless, my wife and I enjoyed the meal.

Prices are reasonable and you can be assured of a...