Tenmabashi - Spanish Food & Wine Bar

El Puente (Out of Business)

Access:

-Osaka Subway, Tanimachi Line - Tenmabashi Station, North Exit
-Keihan Railway, 京阪本線 (Keihan (hon-sen) Main Line) - Tenmabashi Station
When exiting both trains, look for any signs pointing to the OMM Bldg. (where El Puente is located). The closest station is the subway, but you can walk to El Puente from both stations in under 5 minutes, via underground walkways. If you're leaving from the Keihan Railway, head for the exit near the Tanimachi Line of the subway (going through another exit could have you out on the streets or walking toward the castle). I couldn't find the number on OMM website, but I'll be back there tomorrow, so I'll check then. :)

The 盛り合わせ (moriawase) Tapas, featuring a few different items from the Tapas menu.

Food

El Puente is a Spanish restaurant, so it features various types of Tapas, Paella, soups and some specials. The menu is hand-written, which can me either of 2 things. One, they change the menu often enough that they don't need a printed one, or two, they're keeping it D.Y.I.

Chicken and Mushroom Paella

A butt-load of butter. I think they need to work on their butter to bread proportions.

Drinks

☼Atmosphere☼

El Puente is not a huge place, but I think it's average for eateries in shopping malls/arcades. It's on the B2 floor of the OMM building, and it was almost the only open, and certainly the only Spanish restaurant, on the entire floor (that entire building feels like it's stuck in 10 years ago..). I should have taken more photos of the entire, but I feel a bit guilty about snapping away while people are eating nearby.


Anyway, it does have a bar, a small space for about 4 tables in the back, some tables opposite the bar, then some tables right near the entrance. It leaves a lot of space for walking to get your drinks without bumping into anyone, so that's always a plus. It was also relatively quiet, with subtle Spanish/Classical/Jazz-ish music playing in the background, so great for a date or a small intimate party with a few friends!

$$Pricing$$

With the nomihoudai at 1480 yen, the Tapas platter at 1280 yen, the paella at 1590 yen, a separate order of bread and butter at 280 yen, and 540 yen hot chocolate and churros for desert, our grand total for a dinner for 2 was 6,650 yen. It's pretty normal for a meal that includes nomihoudai, but a little expensive if you remember you can get all-you-can-eat-and-drink for about the same price. BUT!! I think the food quality and presentation is definitely much better than your run-of-the-mill all-you-can-eat place, so it's certainly worth a visit!

♥Final Impression♥

Cheap & Easy 第1 - Don Quixote

Who doesn't like things cheap and easy??
The answer is NO ONE. And when living in one of the most expensive cities in the world for expatriates, so it's best to get a deal whenever you can. In this post, I'm gonna to try to lay out a couple points for saving money on household goods.

Keep an eye out for sale days.
A lot of supermarkets in Japan have certain days picked out as sale days. One market near my place usually has sales on Tuesday (pretty arbitrary), and AEON's also tend to have Tues/Wed sales.

Don Quixote seems to use a 'time-sale' type method where, instead of choosing one day for sales, sales with run for a few days for select items before switching to sales on different items. Also, since Don Quixote sells groceries (mostly processed food), clothes, electronics, cosmetics, medicine, bikes and brand items, you can find sales on a wide range of items!

Unfortunately, because sale items rotate fairly often, they may sell out pretty quickly and if it's a limited run item, it won't be coming back. Sad Panda :<

Tip: If you want updates, join Don Quixote's mailing list (Jpn only), which will also allow you to print out coupons!

I love sale items :)

Definitely pick up household goods on sale days!
That photo was from a recent shopping trip on Saturday (I usually avoid Sat. crowds but the sales are good!). I was able to pick up all of these items for under 2000 yen (about 19USD) which is great because a lot of these items are things you don't pick up often! If they had been regular price, I think this trip could have been 3000 yen + easy.

Cleaning supplies tend to be especially pricey in Japan, but if you can pick up 詰替え用 (tsume kae you - refill), it'll help your budget! I would say the median regular price for all these items is about 348 yen (which would bring the total to about 1740 yen, almost 2000 yen without the other non-sale items!!), but I was able to pick them up for about 120 yen.

Everything I picked up, sale and non-sale.

You might be wondering what a few yen matter, but why not make every yen count? With the consumption (sales) tax increase from 5% to 8%, it does not seem like the cost of living in Japan will become anymore reasonable.

I have a few other tips for saving yen, but I'll save those for another post. Trying to keep it short and sweet these days! :P

★Peaces★

So, as we jump head first into the year, I've been pulled, mostly unwillingly, back into the working grind (..grind of working..? I.. don't remember how that saying goes..) daily grind..! I started with a 60,000 word translation over winter break, then 2 weeks of debugging, and now I'm doing doing debugging AND translation concurrently, only instead of going to Shin-Osaka, I have to go to Kyoto city. Insert cry of agony here.

It's not that I don't like going to Kyoto occasionally. Going to Kyoto (or anywhere outside of Osaka City for that matter) on a daily commuter basis is just irritating at it's best, and full on rage-inducing at it's absolute worst.

So, on Monday (when else..?), JR West decided to give me it's absolute worst en route to my new project. To add to the first day jitters, I needed to meet up with some managers before making a 20 minute trek in mid-winter across Kyoto to my new spot. Not fun, and definitely not as cushy as the gig I had in Shin-Osaka, but I know when it's time to pull up the big girl boots, so that's what I did (after some intense bitching on my end, but such outbursts are necessary *professional nod*).

Now, you might be wondering, 'Hey, what does all this work jabber have to with JR sucking?! Japanese trains are the best, you such your dirty mouth..!!' and YES, I wholeheartedly agree. The train companies in Japan make the D.C. Metro system look like it's run by 12-year-olds (love you though D.C.), but hear me out at least. I could save you time wasted on the platform if you'll just hear me out..! (This is also a reminder to myself of how long I've been living in Japan, having these... expectations and such. Crazy.)

Anyway, yes, Japanese trains are timely, pretty clean, and often times quite comfortable (if you can get a seat), but if there was a ranking of the best to worse trains in the Kansai area, JR WEST is, hands-down, bottom place. During my commute in November to Kyoto, the train was late over 5 times during that month. That is RIDICULOUS by Japanese standards. Just to help the mental image, I'll give you another company to compare to; Kintetsu was late a total of ZERO times during my 2 year commute to Nara and Mie (and only 1 time for one of my many trips back home to visit Shota's family).

It's crazy.

So originally, I had the full intention of writing my about my horrid experience of riding on a train that was carrying not only the original commuters, but all the subsequent commuters whose trains were supposed to after the originally delayed train, so think of your normal train commute crowd, and multiply it by THREE, however, I will instead just say:

If I was being pressed into the door to the point of barely breathing, or being nearly trampled by the doors by other commuters desperate to leave, then I was being elbowed by a commuter who wanted to read his god-damned newspaper in a train packed full of grumpy-ass commuters or getting a face full of hair from the girl who didn't realize now is not the time for hair fluffing.. Also, I don't swear often here, but THAT guy was a complete ass. I wish him the worse.

And that is how I started my Monday and my new project.

Really, the moral of the story is, if you can, avoid the JR when you're in Osaka/Kansai. Between Kintetsu, Hankyu, Hanshin, Keihan and the Subway, you can get almost everywhere you want to go, without the hassel. Unless you're riding the bullet train. Sadly, that is only operated by JR.

/rant

Now, enjoy this photo of Bingley contently sitting in a bag:




Here's to a better Monday this time around!

★Peaces★