This post was written in 2006. Shop details and prices may have changed since then.
Rikuro Ojisan’s shop, where I went on the morning of the first day.
Apparently it’s their 50th anniversary this year… quite the old man. Lots of people were coming to the shop from early in the morning. The bread was good across the board.
But above all, the signature items here are the cheesecake and the apple pie. They were selling freshly baked cheesecake… though honestly, cheesecake
tastes better chilled in the fridge than eaten warm… It felt like there were fewer raisins than before, but
for the price it’s still the best there is..
I didn’t take a photo of the cheesecake. It’s just so famous.. ^_^
The heavenly apple pie.
Instead of chopping the apple into pieces, they stew it whole and put it in. The crisp pastry and the sweet, tangy apple give you the very best a pie can offer. The thing is, apple pie is at its best piping hot, and I got there late and ate one that had cooled down. Well.. either way, it’s a great pie.
On the first day I happened to drop into a wine tasting and drank a 2002 vintage Opus One.
Opus One is the most premium of the widely known American wines. It’s a joint venture between Robert Mondavi, the great Napa Valley house, and Baron Philippe de Rothschild, owner of one of Bordeaux’s five first-growth châteaux (Mouton Rothschild). It’s still a young vintage, but it tasted really silky.. I don’t get why this wine gets compared to Mont-Pérat.. they’re completely different in character and in class.
There were plenty of other great wines too, but I ran out of time to taste them. Sad.
For 2,100 yen they pour you that much.
Even as a paid tasting, I was very happy with this. Don’t we have events like this back in Korea??
Roshoki, the Kobe specialist in pork buns (baozi).
They’re shaping them by hand inside.
Business was booming.
Here come the buns.
You have to order at least three. But for all the fame, the taste was nothing special.. standing in line an hour for these is a bit much.. and no free pickled radish on the side either..
The main Rikuro Ojisan shop in Namba.
Before heading home I lined up to buy cheesecake as omiyage (souvenirs). That delicious cheesecake is 525 yen. I felt like taking home a dozen or so ^_^; Since it’s better chilled in the fridge than straight out of the oven anyway, you can just join the shorter line.
Right next door, Futami no Butaman is also a pork bun specialist.
This place also boasts decades of history. A slightly sweet, thick wrapper holds a filling full of juices. It was about 25 times tastier than Roshoki, but sadly I didn’t take a photo of the pork buns. They look exactly like ordinary steamed buns..