Hi everybody

I will be staying in Osaka on a business trip for the next three weeks. My hotel will the Osaka Hilton Umeda.

I am looking for some good restaurants preferably for:

Teppanyaki and Robbayataki, also Shabu-Shabu has anybody here some good recommendations.

thanks

Somehow, I end up eating Italian in Osaka - my customer's preference... but here are some sites that might help you

http://www.bento.com/kansai/index.html

http://www.kansaidineout.com/

http://www.gnavi.co.jp/en/kansai/

http://ss.gnavi.co.jp/fl/search/?id=enU&area=AREAL3102

You should take which restaurants to go to with a grain of salt. If you're going to be there for three weeks, it gives you a lot of time to explore. When I went to Hong Kong a few years ago, I went to a few highly recommended restaurants and invariably was disappointed.

When you have free time, catch the kanjo-sen that circles the city and get off at almost any stop. There will always be decent restaurants near a station. It comes down to what you are looking for. If you're looking for high-end restaurants that cost $40-50 a meal, well, they are not hard to find, in my opinion. It's those little hole-in-the-walls that have that special combination of value, taste, ambience, etc., that makes it memorable.

I know near Tsuruhashi station there's a really great robatayaki that I enjoy going to every time I'm in Osaka but I'm sure there's dozens of similar restaurants like them.

I think half the fun of going into a new place is simply enjoying it for what it is. Sometimes it's great, sometimes it's not. But you almost have to rely upon your own standards of what is good and what is not.

Good luck. . . .

If you can read Japanese ( and even if you can't ) buy the newest issue of Kansai Walker for food recommendations. They have a website ( in Japanese ) at: http://www.walkerplus.com/kansai/gourmet/ . There are endless choices among the shopping streets of Umeda and Nanba and more at the numerous mall complexes. Don't go to the cheap chain Izakaya, though.