Kuromon Market on Foot: Osaka's Kitchen, Doguyasuji and Hozenji Yokocho

Kuromon Ichiba has been feeding Osaka since the nineteenth century and is still, despite the crowds, a working market — the restaurants of Minami buy here in the morning, and the stalls that survive do so on the quality of one or two things.

That is exactly why a guide helps. Walking it alone you will eat whatever is nearest and pay tourist prices for it. Over two hours this tour tastes four to five curated stalls — grilled scallops, yakitori skewers, takoyaki and whatever is good that day — with a guide explaining what each vendor specialises in and what the market's role in the city's food supply has been.

Two more stops sit either side. Sennichimae Doguyasuji is the kitchenware street, a few hundred metres of shops selling nothing but knives, moulds, pans, and the plastic food replicas that fill every restaurant window in Japan. It is the best souvenir shopping in Osaka and almost nobody finds it. Hozenji Yokocho is a stone-paved alley of tiny restaurants behind the Dotonbori noise, built around a small temple whose moss-covered statue is doused with water by everyone who passes.

The guide works in English and is briefed on culture, history and etiquette rather than just routes, which shows in the questions they can answer.

The shared version caps at ten people; a private version runs the same route for a group of its own. Additional food and drink beyond the included tastings is your own, and you will want some — Kuromon is not a place where restraint survives.