Gohan-ya Isshin Osaka

I recently visited Gohan-ya Isshin Osaka in Umeda, Osaka, to complete the list of all Gohan-ya Isshin restaurants, which are extremely popular Japanese lunch restaurants. Gohan-ya Isshin has four restaurants in major cities, including Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, and Kobe, and all of them offer all-you-can-eat rice cooked in a rice cooker during lunch time. So, I headed to the Osaka restaurant with the thought, “I bet the line will be huge at the Osaka restaurant, too…,” and aimed to arrive one hour before the opening time, but as it turns out, the line was…

Not to be outdone by its Kyoto and Daikanyama affiliated restaurants, Gohan-ya Isshin Osaka is also very popular….

I arrived at Gohan-ya Isshin Osaka at around 10:40 a.m. one weekend morning. Despite the weather forecast of heavy rain that day, there were already three customers waiting in line 50 minutes before the restaurant opened…

The restaurant is located on the basement floor down these stairs, and the pre-opening line starts from this position. Since it was raining that day, they allowed us to wait inside the building at first, but the rule is that the line should be formed on the parking lot side seen on the left of the image (we were instructed to move to the parking lot side when the line grew longer that day as well). By the way, is Gohan-ya Isshin particular about opening a restaurant on the basement floor? The Gohan-ya Isshin Kyoto and the Gohan-ya Isshin Daikanyama in Tokyo that I have visited so far were also like this…

After waiting in line for 50 minutes, I entered the restaurant just in time for opening time. According to the restaurant’s Tabelog, Gohan-ya Isshin Osaka has a total of 100 seats, including counter seats. Unlike the Kyoto and Daikanyama restaurants, it is convenient to enter the restaurant without taking off your shoes. Incidentally, when I left the restaurant after finishing my meal, the line extending from the storefront was roughly 30 people long. It was not as long as the previous visit to Gohan-ya Isshin Daikanyama, but it was still very popular! It’s just like that…

Free refill of rice and priced at 1,300 yen (tax included) is a good deal! Seared sea bream with grated yuzu and ponzu sauce as part of the daily lunch special at Gohan-ya Isshin Osaka

What I ordered at Gohan-ya Isshin Osaka this time was the daily special lunch of seared sea bream with grated yuzu and ponzu sauce (price: 1,300 yen including tax).

In addition to the main sea bream, there is rice, miso soup, pickles, and two small bowls of cooked food. As at other Gohan-ya Isshin brand restaurants, the set meal menu allows for free refills of rice.

Let’s start with the main dish, the seared sea bream… The skin is indeed seared, but the grated radish and yuzu ponzu vinegar on top makes it more “moist” than “savory”. The plump snapper meat and the juice blended with grated daikon and yuzu ponzu vinegar…there was no way I could say it was bad, and the rice went right along with it.

The rice was also cooked to a nice, shiny, and fluffy consistency. As expected of rice cooked in a hagama, it is very different. It is far beyond the level of a rice cooker. I was very happy to be able to eat this rice as much as I wanted. For a loner like me, they do not serve rice in a rice chest, but instead the waiter will serve you rice directly from the rice cooker in the back of the restaurant.

In a way, I was most surprised by the kabocha (pumpkin) tofu in a small bowl. It was very fine and sweet, almost like a custard pudding. I really thought it would be a shame to leave this as a small bowl item…it would be nice if they sold it as a souvenir at the restaurant….

I left the restaurant after staying for about 30 minutes enjoying Gohan-ya Isshin Osaka‘s daily set menus. A lunch of this content for 1,300 yen including tax in a prime location in Osaka is definitely a good deal. If you think about it, the price for the same six slices of sea bream is 500 yen more than Gohan-ya Isshin Kyoto’s specialty, tai chazuke. It’s a pity that you can’t have it every day because it changes daily, but this makes me want to repeat Gohan-ya Isshin Osaka in the future.

Examples of other lunch menu items at Gohan-ya Isshin Osaka (prices include tax)

• Freshly rolled dashimaki tamago 1300 yen
• Five kinds of sashimi 2100 yen
• Slowly braised pork stew with half-boiled egg ¥2,000
• Shrimp and seasonal vegetable tempura: 1,700 yen
• Chicken Tsukune Tare Grilled with Sauce ¥1,500
• Crab cream croquette 1300 yen
• Deep-fried young chicken with tatsuta sauce 1,300 yen

Like other affiliated restaurants, Gohan-ya Isshin Osaka is open as an izakaya at night… Access to Gohan-ya Isshin Osaka is a 2-minute walk from the nearest station, Nishi-Umeda Station on the Osaka Metro Yotsubashi Line.

Like its other affiliated restaurants, Gohan-ya Isshin Osaka is open as an izakaya (Japanese-style pub) during the evening hours. It also offers banquet courses and all-you-can-drink, so it looks really easy to use for large parties. With excellent access to JR, Hankyu Hanshin, and Osaka Metro train and subway stations, you don’t have to worry about getting home even if you get drunk. If you are ever in charge of organizing a party, it would be very useful to know about this kind of restaurant, wouldn’t it?

Here are the details of the restaurant…

It is a 5-minute walk from JR Osaka Station and a 12-minute walk from Hankyu Railway’s Osaka-Umeda Station.

P.S. If you are looking for delicious Japanese cuisine in Osaka, please stop by this article below…