What do you do when you have only 36 hours to eat in one of the most food-obsessed cities in one of the world's most food-obsessed countries?
You hit the ground eating.
I was in Osaka last week on a four-day visit, primarily for events at the inaugural Asia-Pacific Food & Wine Festival held at The Ritz-Carlton. What with back-to-back interviews, a press conference and just a little time allotted for shopping, mostly on Doguya-suji, an area full of kitchen tools and equipment, that didn't leave much time to find the heart and soul of Osakan cuisine.
It wasn't through lack of trying. Osaka, in the Kansai region of Honshu, Japan's largest island, is a city whose citizens are said to be friendlier, more humorous and more direct than those in other parts of the country, and who have a party-hearty obsession with food; the concept of kuidaore, or eating to excess, is famous here.
So, although it was past 11pm by the time we arrived and dropped off our luggage at the hotel, we weren't going to let the fact that it was a little late prevent us from eating.
Restaurants tend to shut their doors quite early in Osaka (a day later, we were turned away from a crab place because it was 10.15pm), and our visit coincided with Golden Week, which meant that many places were closed for the holiday. But the Higashi-dori (East Street) branch of Hirokazuya (9-5 Kamiyama-cho, Kita-ku, tel: +81 6 6312 5654) was still open; in fact, it doesn't close until 7am. It's located on a bright, lively street, right next to a maid cafe.