rakuraku

This Udon is no.1 Udon in the world.
Super nice texture noodle and full flavored soup.
This is amazing!!!
If u love Udon, must visit here.

I’ll be honest, I’m actually not a huge fan of udon. Whereas I love noodles in general, I have never really been a fan of the thick, doughy kind of texture a lot of udon noodles tend to have, especially if you get the frozen kind from the supermarket, regardless of the fact that it’s labelled as «raw» noodles.
But it seems like there’s a tipping-​point for almost every type of food /​drink before you start appreciating and or enjoying that type of food, and I think rakuraku might have just done it for me when it comes to udon.
On my last trip to Osaka I was travelling with a friend from the states to whom I was trying to introduce the local cuisine that I’ve learned to love and cherish as a child, which unfortunately meant I was coming off a 2-​day feat of everything fried (enter anything –yaki, –katsu, –age from Osaka and we’d had it)
When my friend then asked me what else Osaka was renowned for, the only other thing that popped in mind was «Tanuki Udon,» but as udon was again, something that I’ve never really had a taste for, I figured I might as well go for broke and try what others have touted as «the best udon in Japan.»
So after consulting a few other established gourmet websites (the ones that end with –log and –navi) my friend and I made the somewhat awkward trek out to Kōzu (郡津) the day we were heading to Kyoto from Osaka (for those of you travelling, Kōzu is about equidistant from Osaka as it is to Kyoto). About forty minutes of sitting in the train and about twelve minutes of walking later, we arrived at the only nondescript establishment in the sparsely populated neighborhood which seemed to have people crowding around it outside. Most of the clientele seemed to be businesspeople and local workers stopping by for a quick bite, which made us admittedly feel a little out of place with our huge backpacks.
But let me tell you: all the trouble was beyond worth it.
Whereas the aforementioned «other gourmet websites» recommended the Kuroge Wagyu Bukkake Niku Udon (黒毛和牛ぶっかけ肉うどん), owing to the cold weather and the fact that my travel companion wasn’t quite accustomed to Kansai’s love affair with mixing raw eggs, we instead opted for the Wagyu Niku Udon Set (和牛肉うどん定食) and a side order of Chikuwa and Poached Egg Tempura (ちく玉天).
rakuraku’s Wagyu Niku Udon is quite decisively the best bowl of udon I’ve ever paid for in my life. It’s remarkably simple in concept – broth, noodles, thin sliced beef, spring onions – but the way everything comes together is beyond my ability to describe in words: the broth is so rich, bursting with flavors of beef, kombu, katsuo with an ever-​so-​light soya taste that adds to the richness but not leave you with a lingering salty taste on your lips; the noodles on first glance just look like hard, doughy udon noodles but they’re an unlikely perfect combination of chewy and glutinous that doesn’t leave you with a bloated feeling as your slurping it (or inhaling it) all down; the wagyu. oh my god the way it melts and mixes with the sliced spring onions on your tongue – the word «food porn» was designed just to describe this phenomenon.
Oh a caveat to others that aren’t a fan of raw-​ish eggs; if you order anything as a set or teishoku here, it comes with a side of tamago kake-​gohan, which is basically DIY rice + raw egg + soy sauce to taste. The chikutama ten, to those unfamiliar with the concept, is a «ball and stick» tempura duo consisting of tempura-​fied chikuwa fish stick and I’m so impressed they did this – a tempura of a perfectly poached egg (see pic for details)
All in all, the long trek here was most definitely worth it and I now have a new appreciation for udon; if more Americans were exposed to this quality of udon, I can definitely see it being the next big «Japanese thing» after ramen restaurants and tapas izakayas.