Hakatarou Osaka — Restaurant in Osaka

As a guest in the hotel, I was looking for dinner, traveling alone, and this was a great choice. It has a long counter along with lots of larger tables designed for privacy for the guests, with drapes of softly colored cloth separating them from one another and from the counter area. My seat faced a chef who was cooking a variety of things while I was there, and it was nice to be able to ask him questions. I ordered the motsu-ni, which is a hot pot made with innards. I asked what kind of innards, and the chef said that meat was from the heart area. Along with the meat, the hot pot had green onions, gobo (burdock root), cabbage, garlic, and tofu. It cooked on a little stove they placed in front of me, in a miso broth. It was incredible. I have not had much motsu in my life, and it was creamy and had a depth of flavor and savoriness that I just cannot describe. I thought, “just kill me now,” it was so delicious. I definitely want to go there again, which I probably will do during this...

We are staying in the hotel where this restaurant is. The experience with the politeness of the Japanese people to us as visitors to the country has been wonderful, except for this visit. Tables were less than half full, plenty of staff around, we were seated right away. Then we waited. No visit from staff, no water or offer to order beverages, nothing for 20 minutes. We were in full view, patrons were being served on either side of us, still no attention. It was apparent that they weren't going to serve us, so we left. I asked the host on the way out why we were ignored, he gave me a blank look like he didn't understand. He did speak English, just had nothing to say. I have great things to say about the food and staff at the breakfast buffet, everything was great in our 2 visits. 5 stars in the morning, 0...

I mistakenly booked this restaurant instead of the outlet at Namba. Hence I got to compare both. The food standard at this outlet isn’t as good as the one in Namba. The Mitzitaki I ordered had everything cooked together whereas the Namba outlet put in the minced chicken meat at a later stage. The soup tasted salty. I suspected salt was added to it unlike the Namba outlet. I was disappointed...