Byakuan - Great Sanuki Udon and Tempura just north of Osaka city centre!

Byakuan 讃岐うどん白庵

One sentence: Great, thick, and chewy Sanuki Udon plus hot and crispy Tempura with generous portion and affordable price (in Osaka).

As this is our second trip to Japan and Osaka, a bit more familarise with this city, so decided to wander a bit further off the city centre/downtown for good food. Actually it is just a short 6 minutes train ride from Umeda Station, very convenient as our hotel base is just nearby Umeda Station.

If you all are regular readers of my Japan food reviews, more often than not I will try those restaurants via researching on tabelog with high score and high amount of reviews (more accurate benchmarks/average).

This one is no different, with a score of 3.93 and 1078 reviews as of this writing, it is a very high score for a non fine dining/omakase restaurant. With numerous Michelin Bib + Tabelog Hyakumeiten awards throughout the years should show you some insights of this Udon restaurant.

Note: The photos in this post are a combination of 2 visits to the restaurant with a few days apart each visit.

**Chewy and thick udon noodles!**
Byakuan 讃岐うどん白庵

Hiya Hiya Tempura Set (¥1200)

Some quick information before we go into the review, there are 3 different combo options on the Udon and Broth that you can choose:

Hiya Hiya = Cold Udon and Cold Broth
Hiya Atsu = Cold Udon and Hot Broth
Atsu Atsu = Hot Udon and Hot Broth

When the set arrives and landed on our table, I’m already impressed with the generous portions!

Just to emphasis, if you look at the main photo, anything within the plate at lower half of the photo is of this set. The food on the plate of the top half of the photo are add-ons, which I will elaborate more on that later.

Udon: Very chewy and thick udon noodles, delicious and amazing texture! Very smooth slurping it and the biting experience is akin to like biting a gummy candy! This udon definitely change my perception of udon, maybe this is how a great udon should be.

Side note on the amount of udon, on first glance you might think the udon is not much, but as you dig in more, the quantity is actually a lot (for us). 100% after eating this set will send you straight to food coma heaven.

Dashi Broth: Smooth, umami, natural subtle sweetness, and refreshing. Not an expert on udon dashi broth, so will just take the details from their website.

They mentioned using the following ingredients for the dashi broth:

Hokkaido Kelp
Kochi Bonito Flakes
Kochi Mejina Fish
Dried Sardines
White Shoyu

Tempura: Hot, tasty and crispy tempura! Batter is relatively thinly coated and the ingredients are actually good, fresh, and of generous portion too. And the cost of each tempura (as an ala carte add-ons) are very affordable, mainly cost ¥100-200 per piece, tempura squid at ¥250 and tempura beef at ¥400 per portion. For detail cost of each tempura, please refer to the menu below.

But the main thing is, we are quite surprised to have such quality tempura at an Udon restaurant, and at this price point. I mean it is definitely not as good as those restaurants that specialise in tempura, but this is darn good for a side dish in a sense.

Overall: Really really good udon noodles and tempura, generous portions, and affordable price. We even bought back a pack of udon noodles to cook, which has around 1 month best before date.

Rating: 3.75/5

**Mentaiko Butter Udon**
Byakuan 讃岐うどん白庵

**Close up on the Mentaiko**
Byakuan 讃岐うどん白庵

**Next, the block of butter**
Byakuan 讃岐うどん白庵

**Thick, chewy udon noodles!**
Byakuan 讃岐うどん白庵

**After mixing with the mentaiko and butter**
Byakuan 讃岐うどん白庵

Cheese Mentaiko Butter Udon (¥1170)

I think one habit we picked up while travelling in Japan is, we just get hooked to try seasonal/limited dishes, and this is part of the seasonal menu…so yeah.

Note: Review done by my wife as this dish is hers, although i have a couple bites off it.

Onto the tasting, this udon dish is kind of a fusion between East (Japanese) and West. Ingredients consists of mentaiko, butter, cheese, nori, and spring onion.

The seasoning on the overall is nice when you eat together with the udon, and it does “stick” to the udon noodles, but I feel it would have so much more potential. As it is now, the seasoning does not get infuse/absorb into the udon noodles due to it’s thickness. So it is a wasted potential in our opinion.

Rating: 3.25/5

**Never forget a glass of beer!**
Byakuan 讃岐うどん白庵

Menu 1 of 4

Menu 2 of 4

Menu 3 of 4

Menu 4 of 4

Seasonal Menu

**Half of the interior seating (managed to get this shot as we are the first 2 customers of the evening)**
Byakuan 讃岐うどん白庵

**Some of the awards they received**
Byakuan 讃岐うどん白庵

**Queue forming outside**
Byakuan 讃岐うどん白庵

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