Sushi Sakaba Sashisu was so good, we had to go twice

In any given city, it’s the locals who know where to find the best places to eat. This is especially true in Osaka, the kitchen of Japan, where kuidaore (食い倒れ) or “eating until you drop” is a legitimate pastime.

According to tabelog.com, Japan’s definitive food guide, there are 67,960 eateries (and counting) in the city. It’s an impressive number, just slightly more than half of Tokyo’s 134,334.

We wanted to visit a Japanese izakaya, somewhere popular with the residents that served value-for-money food and drinks. Filtering for “izakaya” only whittled the list down to 17,258.

The top ranked ones seemed quite expensive, and fancier that what we were expecting. I tried reading through the individual reviews, but that quickly became tedious.

That’s when we remembered that TommyTommy Japan, one of the YouTubers we follow, is an Osaka native. I found an old video he uploaded, featuring a popular salaryman izakaya near Dotonbori that he visited with a friend.

Sushi Sakaba Sashisu (すし酒場さしす) was exactly what we were looking for. It had good ratings, not only on Tabelog 3.42⭐/5.00 (198 reviews) but also on Google 4.2⭐/5.0 (838 reviews).

Location

Google Maps said that the izakaya was located in B1F of Namba Walks, a sprawling underground shopping district connected to Namba station.

We walked down a long stretch of shops and finally spotted the unmistakable cloth norens in Section B29. A crowd control divider stretched out from the entrance, and ran along the entire length of restaurant.

In his video, Tommy had warned that Sashisu attracted long queues during normal meal times, and the long divider was proof of its popularity.

Since the place was open continuously from 11am to 9pm, we decided to get there at 4:30pm for an early dinner. We were rewarded with an empty line, but even then, the inside was already half full.

The Secret Life of Hippos

I have never seen a real life hippopotamus.

All the online videos I’ve watched show how relaxed and carefree they are. Semi-submerged and slowly floating down rivers without a care in the world.

Well, now I know why they look so zen.

Whenever they get hungry, they simply sneak off to the nearest izakaya and scarf down some nigiri sushi, together with copious amounts of sake.

Apparently, this is a practice that dates back to ancient times.

The Japanese word for hippopotamus is kaba (カバ), and the place where people go for drinks is called a sakaba (酒場). Coincidence? I think not.

When I grow up, I want to be a hippo. But until that happens, I’ll have to settle for a seat at Sushi Sakaba Sashisu.

Where highballs go for just ¥290, fresh sea urchin for ¥590, shrimp tempura for ¥380 and a wide assortment of nigiri and maki sushi for only ¥150 a piece.

Menu

While it’s primarily a hangout for locals, word must have spread internationally. Because the laminated menu wasn’t just printed in Japanese, it also included English, Chinese and Korean translations.

Not that you’d really need them, since almost all the food items came with photos. We could have easily gotten by with pointing, but it was good to know what we were actually ordering.

All the usual suspects were present.

Sushi, not surprisingly, occupied an entire page of the double sided A3-sized menu. There was, of course, nigiri, as well as several choices of gunkan and a wide variety of hoso maki.

On the other side, standard izakaya fare was to be found. Evergreen items like chikin (yes, that’s how I spell it) karaage, boiled edamame, chawanmushi, tempura and many others.

We knew, then and there, that our challenge was not what to order, but what to leave out from our order.

But First, Beer

“Nama bīru hitotsu kudasai (生ビール 一つ ください)” is one of the few Japanese phrases that I still remember from my salaryman days.

Back in the day, during my four year bimonthly commute to Tokyo, it was the magic key that unlocked an ice cold beverage at the end of a long, hard day of work.

The Wife decided to opt for something slightly more exotic. The perilla lemon sour she ordered was not bad, but nowhere as satisfying as my mug of freshly-pulled draft beer.

Act One

To kickstart our food adventure, we ordered Sushi Sakaba Sashisu’s signature potato salad. A big spoonful of ikura, delicately balanced on the heaping mound of mashed potato, elevated the otherwise humble dish.

Unlike creamier versions, a lower mayo-to-potato ratio was used, resulting in a drier and chunkier texture that paired well with the fancy topping.

Next came a pair of velvet shrimp sushi. They were lightly torched to bring out the sweetness of the meaty white flesh, as well as to add a playful crunchiness.

The accompanying wasabi came in small self-service packets and tasted surprisingly good. Punchy but not overwhelming, with the slightest hint of fruitiness.

To warm our stomachs, we followed up with a bowl of asari clam red miso soup. Compared to the white miso soup more commonly found in Tokyo, this red one was richer and more up my alley.

We continued with a trio of white meat sushi, including sea bream (tai), squid (ika) and scallop (hotate). Needless to say, the freshness and quality surpassed what was available in Singapore.

Intermission

Since I was playing sake bingo throughout this entire trip, I scanned the menu to see what was available. The sole entry was a Kikumasamune (菊正宗) sake, a generic brand that was just meh.

However, there was another line that stated: “We have other sake. Please see attached sheet.” The Toyobijin (東洋美人) from Yamaguchi (山口) prefecture immediately caught my eye.

It was a sake that I had wanted to try, but one that I hadn’t seen in Singapore. After placing my order, our server came back with a 1.8 litre bottle of Junmai Ginjo 50 and started pouring out a glass.

As it started overflowing into the saucer underneath, two ojisans at our adjoining table enthusiastically cheered her on to keep pouring and she graciously obliged.

For ¥550 a glass, with the generous overflow, I definitely got my money’s worth. The Toyobijin was smooth, full-bodied, fruity and a total joy to drink.

Act Two

With our gastric juices all fired up and sufficient alcohol flowing through our veins, we picked up the menu again and shifted our stomachs into second gear.

The chawanmushi we ordered had a cheese and black sesame topping that looked, and tasted, quite unique. It didn’t seem like the flavour combination would work, but it turned out surprisingly good.

We usually don’t order unagi in sushi form, and prefer to have it at a specialty unagi-ya in donburi or hitsumabushi. I’m glad we made an exception, because it had a nice smokey char and was as tasty as any we’ve had before.

Given the quality of the sushi we had so far, I was excited to try their maguro a.k.a. tuna.

There are three main cuts served: akami (赤身), chutoro (中トロ) and otoro (大トロ), with increasing levels of fattiness. Otoro is the most popular choice, but I personally prefer chutoro for its balance of fat and flavour.

I had both of the delicious morsels all to myself, as The Wife’s tuna boycott (because dolphins) was still in effect.

No night out at an izakaya is complete without a plate of chikin karaage.

The ones at Sushi Sakaba Sashisu came as drumlets, with a blob of mayo and half wedge of lemon. They had less meat than traditional nuggets, but made up for it in their fun factor.

Remember the unagi sushi from earlier? Well, we liked it so much that we had it again. Since it was our last order, I snuck in an uni gunkan for good measure.

Our total bill came up to ¥6,710, a really good price given the quality and quantity of what we had eaten and drunk.

As I was lining up at the cashier’s to pay, I caught a Tomichelin sticker on the wall, complete with a Japanese-looking marshmallow man exclaiming “おいしい!” (oishii).

It’s TommyTommy Japan’s stamp of culinary approval, and based on our dinner, I would definitely look out for other places that carry that mark.

Return Visit

Less than 24 hours later, we were back. This time for a late lunch at 2:00pm, after the rush had subsided. We had to wait, only for a couple of minutes as they cleaned our table.

Yes, I know, we should have explored other restaurants since we in Osaka for only a few short days. There are plenty of other options (67,959 of them, to be exact), but we just could not get Sashisu out of our minds.

Especially the special menu, written entirely in Japanese, that was ignored the night before.

We had ordered exclusively off the multi-lingual menu, but couldn’t shake the feeling that we missed out on the good stuff.

So, armed with Google Translate’s camera function, we confronted the language barrier head on. Most of the items were understandable, but some, like “Ara’s Redness” and “Bruce Lee”, were outright mysteries.

But First, Sake

I skipped my customary nama bīru and went straight for nihonshu. Unfortunately, out of the four that were listed, only the Kirakucho (喜楽長) from nearby Shiga (滋賀) prefecture was available.

Unfortunately, there were no enthusiastic ojisans to pressure our server this time, so there was only just a tiny overflow, more for symbolic purposes.

The sake was drier than what we’re used to, but still quite smooth and enjoyable. I would have very much preferred the Toyobijin, but it must have been wiped out the previous night.

It went really well with the “Assortment of three types of sashimi” though. Two slices each of salmon, sea bream and yellowtail were arranged prettily on shredded radish and shiso leaves, with a blob of (maybe) wasabi on the side.

Buri, Three Ways

We decided to live life dangerously, and ordered the mysterious “Ara’s Redness”, together with “Today’s Kamayaki”.

The former turned out to be red miso soup with a hearty chunk of fish, nowhere near as dramatic as the translated name. And the latter was a simple, but perfectly, grilled fish collar.

To make it a hattrick, we added a “Boiled Fish” and was served a meaty hunk of what looked like braised buri, or amberjack.

Come to think of it, the previous two dishes were probably buri as well.

Which is great, because it’s one of our favourite fish. Its versatility as a cooking ingredient was evident from the boiled, grilled and braised items on our table.

Curtain Call

The rest of our lunch included “Grilled Nodoguro Nigiri”, “Grilled Shrimp Samadhi” and “Fried Oysters”, all of them specials, and finally, hotate and shima aji sushi from the regular menu.

We had to resist the urge to order the unagi sushi (again), and consoled ourselves with the anticipation of indulging in an unagi-only meal in Kyoto the following week.

The total bill for lunch was ¥4,895, even less than our previous meal

While we didn’t get to try every item on the menu, we had sampled enough to know that Sushi Sakaba Sashisu was a keeper. A place that we could go back to, time and again.

Great food, good sake and a friendly, albeit somewhat noisy, environment that’s a favourite with local Osaka residents.

Oh, and also, hungry hippos.