Kitchen Nakao

Great food and good prices at a neighborhood restaurant. "Hand-made Western food" in the Japanese sense of Western food: エビフライ (fried oyster, just in season),　カキフライ (breaded fried shrimp),　ハンバーグ (not to be confused with ハンバーガー, a hamburger), and the like. I won't repeat everybody else's praise or de...scriptions, and simply just say that the food was all very tasty, and we could tell that the sauces and garnishes were all made from scratch. We sat at the counter and had long conversations with the owners/cooks between their busy work. We even asked about the tartar sauce with the fried oysters and received a detailed description of the process, including the mayonnaise used. The rice seemed more tasty than usual, and the corn soup was excellent as well, with savory kernels of corn. This is truly--and literally--a "mom and pop shop." They have been in business since 1978, and the Showa feeling and the decor of the restaurant (all original) is wonderfully nostalgic. They are Hanshin Tigers fans (one of the sons went to school with a Hanshin star) and have lots of Hanshin memorabilia, which also adds to the homey atmosphere. Of course, if you are younger, Showa is wonderfully trendy these days. The father and son are the cooks, and the mother serves. The son, having grown up helping out in the restaurant, left his job and returned several years ago to help out and take over--and his children enjoy cooking, and maybe we will have four generations working there before long. As we were leaving, they gave us a box of wooden matches from the original restaurant nearly a half-century ago. We will become regulars :)

Visited October 2023