11/11 - Gyoza Museum

Back on the subway to Umeda [梅田].  We went topside and it was now completely dark.  We snaked our way past a department store or two to find our way to the Namco City building.  If you're not familiar with Namco, they are a big video game producer.  Their most famous title would be Pac-Man.

Our destination, the Gyoza Museum, was atop several stories of a video game arcade.  Again, these food museums tend not to be actual museums, but really a food court that is dedicated to a specific dish or cuisine.  In this case, it is the common, but oh so varied gyoza.

Gyoza [餃子]is the Japanese name for what is essentially Chinese dumpling (known as jiaozi in Chinese).  There is a lot of variety in the way these dumplings are stuffed and cooked.  So we arrived at the Gyoza Museum with high expectations.  The very first stall was right at the top of the escalator.  We were greeted instantly by the worker there.

After a few exchanges between N and this worker, she asked us if we were Chinese.  It turns out that she is a Chinese international student studying Japanese in Osaka.  She said she was from Liaoning province in the Northeast of China.  She was very excited to meet other Chinese in Osaka.  So obviously, we had to order something from her.

The Chinese student gave us our number for our order and we found a table in the seating area.  N suggested we split duties and find some more gyoza.  So we both went to a couple of stalls and ordered a gyoza dish from each one.  Here's the very short skinny on each dish. 

Ironplate Pan fried gyoza from the Chinese girl's gyoza stall.  H thinks it was pork, but we don't remember now.

Here's fried gyoza covered in loads of green onions (aka. negi gyoza).  Plus, that was drenched in soya sauce.

Fried mayonnaise gyoza.  We're assuming that it was pork inside too.

A very oily pan fried gyoza.  This was too oily from what we remember.

What special gyoza is this?  N says it was a cheese gyoza garnished with broccoli on the side.

[All photos, especially of food, are courtesy of N ... naturally]

Overall the Gyoza Museum was worth the visit.  There was way more available than just these 5 dishes.  Now that our tummies were full, it was time for one last destination for the evening.  Our feet were tired, but we were pressing on.