The first morning in Osaka started off with the breakfast buffet in one of the Hotel restaurants.

Consisting of western and japanese foods alike I was nevertheless surprised to find one of Osakas famous dishes takoyaki being part of the buffet. And they were surpisingly good! I have to say I find that crispy toast goes along very well with glaced salmon, hijiki and tamagoyaki and the vanilla pudding with green tea sirup as dessert was great.

The Highlight of this day was the lunch at the Gourmet Buffet Restaurant Olympia (グルメバイキングオリンピア) in the Hankyu hotel next to Osaka station. The restaurant opened at 11.30 and by that time the room in front of it was packed with people all waiting to get inside. There are not only three different food styles (western, chinese and japanese) they also have a dessert buffet (*yay*)

The sushi was great, very fresh (also because there were so many people and they had to change the plates every few minutes) and of high quality. Though I had no doubts about the western food (really not so much to do wrong with fries and steak) I wasn’t sure about the chinese section of the buffet, but everything was not only very good but did taste just like in Shanghai. Of course I didn’t try all of it, only a very small portion, because I just HAD to try the dessert buffet.

Yoghurt, fruits, various cakes and creams, white chocolate fountain and (*yes*) a soft-ice maschine complete with a variety of konpeito (colorful sugar sweets) as decoration. I had some green tea tiramisu, strawberry shortcake, strawberry jelly cake and cheesecake. As you can see they were really small portions but after I came back with this dessert I was hence known as “the one who ate four (!) cakes” by the japanese participants…

But of course this little mockery was not meant to be mean and after they started this the president of the company even went and got himself some cakes (^_^)

In the evening we went to a nice little restaurant with separate rooms, where we ate sukiyaki, a hot pot dish prepared at the table, consisting of meat, vegetables and noodles.

Eating japanese and getting your food prepared at the table bit by bit is very relaxing but it also presents a hidden danger, as one only suddenly realised how much one really ate. If everything I ate would have been on one plate I might not have eaten everything (because I were still full from lunch). My husband encounters the same problem in germany; when I place a full plate in front of him he’ll not be able to finish it, but sit him at a round table and give him a small bowl in his hand, he will continue to eat for three hours by eating little bits.