Kobe China Town

I went to Kobe China Town with some friends recently. Kobe is a really cool city. I wouldn’t mind living there at all. Japanese people often say that Kobe is similar to Yokohama in many ways. It’s gotta port. They have a ferris wheel. There are a lot of foreigners, and they also have a China Town.

Kobe is only about 30 minutes from Osaka and easy to get to. Some of my friends tell me that Kobe is a little too posh, and they like the down and dirty, “なんでもあり” feeling of Osaka more. I haven’t been in either long enough to judge.

We went to this famous Buta-man place in ChinaTown. To say the line was out the door is an understatement. The line was out the door, across the street, between the statues, and into the square. This restaurant is a chain that is also apparently extremely famous in Shanghai. It’s called Roushouki.

We got in line to get our buta-man, it actually only took about 20 min to get to the front door and out. It then took us about 5 min to eat the buta-man. The stuff was cheap, I think 80 yen for one buta-man. Not bad. My friends said that it was good… but not good enough to line up 20 minutes for. I think this just goes to prove the theory that Japanese people like to be in a line. Seriously though, before I came to Japan I don’t think I ever lined up to get into a restaurant… Then again… I lived in Iowa and Indiana so…

I like the word, “buta-man”. I wonder how many times I can say it in this entry… If you look closely, you’ll notice that everyone, I mean everyone in the picture below is making buta-man. That’s cool. I wanna make buta-man.

Buta-man is like Niku-man, but instead of niku inside the bread, there is buta. Which is pig. Hence, buta-man. Kinda like An-man, without the anko… buta instead. Umm… Buta-man. Do you guys know An-pan Man? Why isn’t there a buta-man man? Actaually “man” and “pan” are fundamentally different foods really. You’ve got Niku-man, Buta-man, Pizza-man, and then there’s An-pan and Kuri-pan and Creme-pan and what not. They’re both bread based, but they’re really different. Apa-man is something completely different.

Ah yes. The buta. I don’t have so much to say about this event actually. But, doesn’t it look good?

Mmmm…. Buta-man.

-Harvey