I made a friend!

Not a bad first day in Osaka.  I checked into my hotel around lunch time, and did some research on where to go for lunch.  I found the perfect place, an izakaya (a small, informal restaurant with a chef behind a counter and, typically, no tables)  about a mile from the hotel, and set off.  The way one goes about trying to find a specific restaurant in Japan is to find it on a map, go there, and then spend the next hour trying to find which unmarked side street/alley/back door/4th floor walk up/brothel is the one where the restaurant actually is located (more on this in the next post).  Anyway, after doing that routine, I finally found the place, walked in, and found that it was completely empty except for the chef, reading a newspaper behind the counter. He informed me that the place I was looking for had been closed for two years.  Part disgusted, part amused, I decided to pull up a chair.

I was served a fairly nondescript but tasty dish of diced chicken thighs and egg on a bed of rice, and the chef and I struck up a conversation.  We chatted for a bit, and it soon became clear he was very happy to have a guest all the way from New York at his small restaurant and that the two of us should celebrate the occasion in the typical Japanese way which, apparently, is to try every type of sake in the place. Two very jovial hours later, we were having blast, and he decided on a restaurant for me for dinner: a Michelin one-star chef had recently opened a small izakaya, and, although it's tremendously difficult to get into on account of the fact that it only has 12 stools, he knew someone there and he'd put a call in.  Sure enough, he was able to get me an 8:30 seat.  Now all I had to do was find the place.