We originally only planned to spend one night in Osaka, as a convenient base when travelling to the Kumano Kodo. But as some of our Korean plans got rained off, we were back for a few more days and we really enjoyed the vegan scene there. Overall I think Kyoto has more charm and the better vegan options, but we got to try some really fun dishes here too.

Mercy Vegan Factory

Dr HH and I both ordered the deep fried vegetables and kurumafu curry. Kurumafu means wheat gluten or seitan, in this context. The curry sauce was delicious, it was well spiced and full of flavour. There was a good selection of vegetables which provided a pleasing variety of flavours and textures. The star of the show was the fried seitan meat chunks. The coating was so crisp and they were the perfect texture! I absolutely love a Japanese curry, and this was a very good one.

It was actually the promise of a dessert counter that lured us in, as I’d seen this place listed as one of the best vegan dessert spots in Japan. Honestly, we were underwhelmed by our options. Dr HH got a caramel and banana tart and said it was fine. The flavours were good but the pastry was a bit soft.

I had the chocolate cake, which had a good bake and flavour, without being too intensely chocolatey. It was nice, but I’ve had better chocolate cake, and it was nothing mindblowing, as some of the reviews and posts had suggested.

We also got some melonpan to takeaway for breakfast the next day. We’d been on the lookout for vegan melonpan but failed to get one so far. This was really good, the bread/sponge part was chocolate and the outer biscuit layer had a nice crunch to it. They kept well for the next day too. These were better than the cake and tart. Despite being a bit disappointed by the cakes, I’d still happily recommend this place. I want to try to recreate this melonpan too!

Vegan Ramen by Playpen Friends

This was one of my favourite ramen spots in Japan. It’s an all-vegan spot with six ramen options on the menu. I had the tomato tonkotsu ramen. The broth was absolutely delicious, really savoury, creamy and rich. There were plenty of noodles, so it was a filling dish. The fried tofu was also good. There was perhaps a bit too much sweetcorn for my taste, but generally it was fantastic.

Dr HH had the syoyu tonkotsu, which also had a good creamy broth. There were a few different seaweed textures and the tofu was tasty. For both of us, the broth was the star of the show, really delicious.

We enjoyed that these were quite different from any other ramen we had in Japan, the tomato broth especially. It’s always fun to see someone trying something different!

Vegan and Gluten Free Osaka

It was tricky to find this place, as Google Maps took us to entirely the wrong location. Try to follow the instructions on Happy Cow to ensure you find it. This place goes by a different name (and serves a different, non-vegan menu) during the day, and is listed in the mall directory under that other name, so try searching for ‘The Second Room Cafe’ to make things easier.

The selling point during the day is that rather than one large dining room, it’s divided into small private rooms so that people can use them for breastfeeding. We were quite surprised to arrive and be taken to our private room with a giant TV and a sofa and coffee table, both of which were a bit too low for my personal liking. It’s supposed to recreate the comfort of dining at home, but it wasn’t that comfy for me, and I suspect other tall people might struggle similarly. But fear not, the discomfort was worth it! We were really excited by the menu which gave us the chance to try some veganised versions of local delicacies, and we were really pleased with what we got.

We really enjoyed the okonomiyaki. It was a decent size and saucy, but not totally swimming in sauce. The cabbage and meaty chunks had enough bite to keep the texture interesting. I really want to make a good okonomiyaki at home soon, hopefully I can recreate this magic!

We also tried takoyaki for the first time ever, and we were impressed! The server gave us some advice that we appreciated on how to eat it without burning our mouths (poke a little hole in it with your chopstick). The texture was nice and gooey inside and it had a good savoury flavour. It was a fun dish! Neither of us has ever tried the original octopus version of this, so we can’t really comment on its authenticity, but we loved it.

And we tried kushikatsu for the first time. I didn’t know before that this is simply deep fried skewers with meat and vegetables, which sounds good to me. The coating was good and crunchy, while the vegetables and mock meat were tender. This one was a bit difficult to share between two, but we enjoyed it.

For two not super hungry people, we shared the okonomiyaki, five pieces of kushikatsu, and ten pieces of takoyaki (you can select on the menu how many pieces you want), and we were very satisfied with that amount of food. Surprisingly, we found it more expensive than Tokyo. Ultimately, it was worth it to get the fun local dishes we wanted in a convenient location – even with that low sofa!

Oko Takoyaki

We couldn’t resist another chance to try takoyaki, this time in an all vegan spot that specialises in this very dish. As always, there are no reservations. Happy Cow reviewers warned that the queue gets long, so we were there right at opening time, and we still had to wait as we were only third in line.

This place is staffed by one person and it is tiny. The queue is down the stairs, because there’s no room inside to wait. When you are called in by the staff, you step up to the counter and place your order, then pay and get a number. You take a seat in one of the few seats available (maximum ten, I think) and wait for your number to be called. I really can’t emphasise enough how crowded it is. If you want to try to get to the self-service drinks area, you need to hope there’s nobody sitting at the bar. When you’re clearing away your dishes at the end, you can’t reach the bins if there’s anyone at the counter placing an order.

We ordered two versions of takoyaki, one with the standard sauce (pictured above) and the other with spicy sauce and vegan cheese (pictured below). The takoyaki was served with miso soup and a red cabbage salad as well – the soup was really tasty.

Unfortunately the takoyaki was quite burned. I’m not sure if it’s supposed to have a kind of caramelised or charred effect (the one at Vegan and Gluten Free Osaka did not), but it did just taste like it was burned. That was the predominant flavour, as the standard sauce was unremarkable and the balls themselves were very bland. Inside they had a texture that was reminiscent of supermarket veggie fingers from the 1990s – soft, bland potato and small pieces of carrot and pea. Dr HH reported that the spicy sauce added some flavour, but the cheese was unremarkable.

The kushikatsu was better. The mushrooms in particular were juicy and flavoursome.

Between the food, the wait, and the cramped space, this was a real let down. The reviews on Happy Cow are absolutely glowing though, people love it and insist it’s worth the queue, which can reportedly be a full hour. A lot of people seem to be fans of “the vibe” (as the youth say), which I think means the graffiti on the walls and counters. Honestly though, after a long, sweaty day, the last thing I wanted was to be crammed in next to strangers amongst chaotic decor. Good food would have cancelled out those things, like the food at Vegan and Gluten Free Osaka balanced out the uncomfortable seating, but alas, none of this worked out for me.

Riccio d’Oro, Kobe

We took a day trip from Osaka to Kobe, which is not far away at all, and the only food we ate there was an ice cream. It’s not really worth creating a separate post for one spot, so I’m adding it in here for ease.

This was an all vegan ice cream place. There were 12 flavours to choose from and it was a good mix of classic flavours and more exciting options. The ones we tried were all very creamy and I was very happy with the texture.

Dr HH got the green tea and brown rice flavour and the cheesecake flavour. The green tea wasn’t quite for him (not a big green tea fan in general) but it was okay and he liked the nuttiness from the brown rice. The cheesecake was very good, it was a bit lemony and had some biscuit bits as well.

I played it a bit safer (as always!) and got the chocolate and the ricchococream, which was a vanilla flavour with chocolate biscuity bits. The flavours were very enjoyable. The chocolate wasn’t very decadent, but it made for a good treat.

We also enjoyed that there was a hedgehog theme here, it was very cute!

Activities in Osaka

We saw adverts around town for a teamlabs installation at the Botanical Garden, so we snaffled some online tickets and made our way there after dark (it was only open 8:30-10pm in summer, so you can see everything lit up). There were lots of fun light-up, egg-shaped objects that you could interact with, plus various other video mapping and light displays. If you enjoy teamlabs, it’s good fun.

I’d never heard of a quasi national park before, but this was the second one we visited in Japan – Minoh Quasi National Park. We eyed up a fairly gentle but still uphill walk from the train station into the park, stopping off at Ryuanji Temple en route to the big waterfall. It was a much easier walk than some of the more ambitious and exhausting ones we’d done elsewhere on the trip – the intense heat and humidity were getting to us by this point!

We took a day trip to Kobe from Osaka, hoping to do a fun hike and see some other sights as well. From the train station, we hiked uphill to see the Nunobiki waterfalls and reservoir. The waterfalls were excellent, but it was a punishing climb on a brutally hot day. We made it to the Nunobiki Herb Gardens and needed some rest and rehydration! Fortunately, there was a ropeway back down the hill.

We then took the bus over to the Mount Maya cable railway station, and made our way up the mountain to the viewpoint. It’s reportedly one of the top three night views in Japan, and was not shabby in the day time either!