Tsuruhashi Fugetsu (Tsuruhashi)

The undisputed standard of casual Osaka okonomiyaki chain spots.

Okonomiyaki Tsuruhashi Fugetsu is a longtime fixture of Osaka and ubiquitous across the city and beyond. With over sixty locations in the Kansai region, including more than forty in Osaka prefecture alone, you would be hard pressed to find an Osakan okonomiyaki lover who never eats there, making it in some senses the de facto large chain standard-bearer of the dish.

Highlights

English menu available.

This chain began in 1989 with a single location in the Tsuruhashi area (just slightly east of central Osaka) a fact it still proudly incorporates into the name of the entire chain. Tsuruhashi has long had the reputation of being Osaka’s Koreatown, an image that has expanded over time from simple clusters of kimchi stalls and yakiniku restaurants (known to most westerners outside of Japan as “Korean BBQ”) to include trendy young neon-fronted cafes, hip fried chicken or cheese corn-dog stands, and boutique K-pop memorabilia shops – some focused entirely on a single idol group.

Appropriate to this historical milieu, popular wisdom is that it was the Fugetsu chain that popularized kimchi as an ingredient in okonomiyaki, as well as first translated the popular home meal of Japanese-Korean fusion buta-kimchi (stir-fried pork belly and kimchi) into okonomiyaki form. While these widely notions are almost certainly unverifiable, they do add to the legendary mystique of the now ubiquitous brand.

Fugetsu’s okonomiyaki is strong on the flavor, deploying its rich salty-sweet okonomiyaki sauce, creamy dollops of light Japanese-style mayonnaise, and tart beni shoga (julienned plum-pickled ginger) to great effect. Its texture tends to be on the denser and moister side, not particularly crispy or fluffy, with a heavier batter and a medium-fine cabbage strip size consistency.

Tsuruhashi Fugetsu’s lineup hews to the conventional, with no big twists or surprises on the menu. But this is almost inevitable: the chain is so omnipresent across Osaka and it has such an outsized reach and influence on what many people’s concept of the “the norm” is for okonomiyaki that it is almost by definition incapable of doing anything unusual, since simply by virtue of Fugetsu doing it, it wouldn’t be unusual any longer.

English menus are available, and staff generally seem well-trained at accommodating diners who cannot read or speak Japanese. Although your author is fluent in Japanese, simply asking if there was an English menu resulted in a different server coming over who kindly explained the ordering and cooking process in English, in a friendly and easy-to-understand manner that would make most overseas visitors feel comfortable.

Notes

As orthodox as Fugetsu’s approach to okonomiyaki is, it does one thing almost no other place does. Whereas katsuo-bushi grated bonito fish flakes are usually sprinkled on top of the cooked and sauced griddle cake at the end for an effervescent flakey umami topping, Tsuruhashi Fugetsu sprinkles them on in the middle and flips the griddle cake over to sear them in for a less textural but more built-in flavorful dashi fish broth kick.

How and why this has become one of the chain’s sole peculiarities might be due to other establishments deciding this doesn’t work, or a testament to a determined effort on the part of Fugetsu to maintain its identity despite becoming the nationwide face of the dish.

Diners will have to decide for themselves which is the “correct” way — which, for this widely varying and decidedly personal comfort food, is perhaps the way it should be.

Locations

Tsuruhashi Fugetsu has locations all over Japan, with the vast majority located in Osaka and its greater metropolitan area. The photos above were taken at its Tsuruhashi main location.

Tsuruhashi Fugetsu Tsuruhashi Branch Information

Name in English:
Tsuruhashi Fugetsu Honten

Name in Japanese:
鶴橋風月 本店

English address:
2-18 Shimoajihara-cho, Tennoji-ku, Osaka, 543-0025 Japan

Japanese address:
〒543-0025 大阪府大阪市天王寺区下味原町2-18

Opening hours:
11:30am-10:30pm (Mon-Fri), 11:00am-11:00pm (Sat, Sun and holidays)

Non-smoking area: Yes

Price:
Fugetsu-yaki ¥1580

Nearest Transport:
1 minute walk from Tsuruhashi Station of JR Osaka Loop Line, Kintetsu Nara Line and Osaka Metro Sennichimae Line

Website: Official Website

Where Is This Restaurant Located?

All of the restaurants in Osaka Okonomiyaki Guide are shown on the following map. They’re also listed on our main Osaka map.

More Information

• Insider’s Guide to Osaka Okonomiyaki Restaurants
• Best Osaka Restaurants

About the author: Angelino Donnachaidh is a translator/interpreter, food lover, history enthusiast, and longtime resident of Osaka, Japan. He is also the author of the middle grade historical fiction illustrated novella Tamiu: A Cat's Tale, the forthcoming YA post-cyberpunk AI heist adventure Brother, and the forthcoming sci-fi samurai epic The Mayhem Protocols. Find him on the web at saica-creative.com/angdonn.

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