I'm good friends with two guys in Osaka. The last time I went they took me to the Swimming Squid (which is still my favorite restaurant in Osaka). This time they took me to Umapero, a horse meat spot. The menu is all horse all day. For real.
It turns out horse is really good! And Umpero is really cool! As I should've expected from the Google translation of their website and the horse pinatas mounted over the door.
Fun drinking party girls' association! Reasonable horse meat! Homemade sangria and grilled wine glass! What could go wrong?
Our first course was horse sashimi. The white stuff on the right comes from the horse's neck, right under the skin below the mane. The stuff above the neck meat is skirt steak (which is the diaphragm). I think the thick pink meaty stuff on the top left was tenderloin. The stuff below that was cured tongue. The stuff below the tongue was sirloin, I think.
The neck meat wasn't particularly flavorful, but the other selections had clear, clean flavors. The tongue, skirt, and tenderloin were all lean and different from beef but not gamy or cloying like venison can be. The sirloin was fattier but not not nearly as fatty as Japanese beef.
After that was horse sushi. It was good but after that sashimi platter it was just more of the same and the rice actually detracted from the flavor of the meat.
I ate cooked food too, like this horse steak frites (which was completely indistinguishable from American beef).
We had a bunch of other cooked and raw courses, but the most interesting (at least to me) from a cultural perspective was the pastrami and pepperoni platter.
The ambiance is great too. The waitresses are friendly, cute, and speak serviceable English. Their uniforms include a golf shirt with one of those giant Polo logos, except instead of a mallet the polo guy has a giant fork. I was the oldest person there. Everyone was knocking back malt liquor and/or sake and you can smoke if you want. There were several tables of ladies that definitely made the place seem like "Fun drinking party girls' association." The tables are close to foster conversation between parties, and if things go well you don't have to go far--during a conversation about Japanese politics and societal norms, my friend Soichi pointed out the window to a building and said "That is a place for sex. If you meet a girl and want to have sex you don't have to take her home, you just go to an hourly place like that. They are all over the city." Umapero even has an adjacent hourly sex hotel! But be sure to bring some Alka-Seltzer and be prepared for strange smelling farts.
Umapero gets a 5 out of 5 spur rating. You should absolutely check it out if you're in Osaka. And if you need a reason to visit Osaka you should read my next post ...
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31 comments:
The Supreme Court held that you can register an offensive or obscene trademark, so the R**skins can continue to rely on federal laws to enforce their trademarks.
this means my go fuck yourself brand will be fastracked. next step, profit.
"OSAKA!" - Steve Spurrier voice
I didn't realize there were so many equestrians among our readership.
there's a long history of horse on russell violence, dating back generations, but i don't think i could bring myself to eat one.
i am scared of horses, so i might eat one to conquer my fear, and i'm very against horse-racing . . . and i also wonder how these things are raised-- is it a factory farm, like cows or are they allowed to roam free and gallop and such? a great post (and i'm catching up on the others, i've been busy) that i made my son ian read aloud to me while i cooked dinner.
So Carrie Fisher had coke, MDMA, heroin and methadone in her system when she died. Impressive array there, Leia.
So she liked horse too?
Clever, Z.
that's why i come around here . . . for the heroin puns.
no horse "sausage" heh?
In college I hooked up with a girl known as 'horse-face' , but we didn't go to a sex motel.
When I was on the AT in 98 I met a horse trader who invited a bunch of hikers to his camp to partake of generous quantities of food and spirits. The next morning, still drunk from the night before and buzzed from a morning spliff, I mounted a horse for the only time in my life. Later that morning the horse trader gave me a pill that he said would make me 'hike 40 miles today'. Must have been some kind horse tranquilizer. I proceeded to hike zero miles that day, and maybe one the next, just cause I realized I had worn out my welcome.
That was one of the more daring hook-ups of all time. I remember FOGTB C. Dick Long shaking his head in concerned disbelief. "He went to sorority court? And parked his car there? Boy, that's ... I don't know how this will pan out."
why does Phil Jackson want to destroy the Knicks?
Payback for the phantom Pippen-on-Davis foul in '94?
CD Long was right - it didn't pan out well, and word spread quickly. That was after a night of x-rated xmas carols and I had ceded control of my judgment, and my friends were not the kind to intervene. I woke up and threw up in the Chi-O house bathroom, then stealthily stumbled to my car. Good times!
Could'be been worse. You could've wet the bed of the Tri Delt president, and then been seen by 6-9 women holding the sheets as you came down the stairs.
Why is it that the vast majority of our hookup stories end in disgrace or regret and not triumph?
pathos makes for better stories
also, an anonymized post with the worst attempted hookup stories would get massive ratings. send me emails and i'll put it together.
At least the regret is probably mutual.
I have a cornucopia of failed/worst attempts from which to choose.
Whatever Z, you were the hairy Hungarian pepperoni nippled lady slayer of unit m!
It didn't seem that way at the time but it's nice of you to say. I think that no more than 4 out of 5 of your factual assertions are accurate.
Who has the most regret from the purple girl story? I vote for the person who had their cooking pot barfed in.
I think purple girl had the most regret. Her sisters publicly humiliated her after that incident.
In related news, zson thinks that "mac n cheese" is spelled "mackin cheese."
At U2 with rob. With or without you.
Dwight Howard got traded for the lesser Plumlee and Marco Belinelli. Well deserved.
I just found out what an "Upper Decker" is. Good think nobody taught me about that 25 years ago.
So you're watching Louie?
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