Hi! Welcome to my very first English language post. At this good time, I want to share my halal dining experience in Matsuri Halal Japanese Restaurant in Osaka, Japan.

Before I went to Japan one month ago, I was searching halal restaurant and start making list. It was not that difficult nor that easy in finding halal restaurant in Japan, because more and more halal restaurants are coming up as the number of Muslim traveler rising. For you Indonesian travelers, I found a very helpful and comprehensive reference on these blogs; blog 1 and blog 2. Thanks a lot for the authors!

From those restaurants, I only managed to come to Matsuri Halal Restaurant in Osaka, Japan. I went there with my family around 9 PM for dinner. Thank God they're still open. It is a small restaurant, smaller than I thought, on a nearly empty street. At that time, I almost found nobody on the street even though it was a quite big street actually.

When we entered the restaurant, there were some people having their dinner there. All tables were occupied so I thought we would be on the waiting list. But then the waiter said there was another room inside for 6 of us. How happy I was when I saw it is a "lesehan" place. In Indonesian, lesehan means sitting on the floor. Besides it was very Japanese, we could also rest our legs after a long walk. In addition, there is a small prayer room behind this room.

Shortly after we sat down, the waitress gave us the menu. I was quite worried about the price before I went there, because many restaurants in Japan had different price for lunch & dinner although it's exactly the same menu. That's why many tourists recommend to come for lunch instead of dinner because of the significant price difference. But then I was quite surprised because the price in Matsuri is not that expensive. It's standard for Japanese restaurant. Compared to Indonesia especially Jakarta, the price was still okay. I thought they have a same price for lunch and dinner.

A hungry me went bit crazy in ordering food then, haha. Besides hungry, I found that the menu was very interesting. They had variety kind of Japanese food and everything looked tempting. I spent a long time to choose my order. In addition, it was the very first time we eat Japanese halal food during our stays in Japan. So can you imagine how thrilled I was?

So we ordered these food (and some other uncaptured food):

The drinks were fresh we even ordered more. What made me happier is they also had halal dessert and halal souvenirs!! It was veeery difficult to find halal snacks and sweets, so when I met one, I didn't want to miss that opportunity to try them. 

I loove their Taiyaki. Actually I don't like red bean, but their red bean was sweet and delicious. I think it's the first time I fell in love with red bean.

After finished eating, I went to the souvenir corner to buy some. I bought Baumkuchen and a kind of vanilla biscuit for gift. I thought the taste would be just okay, but when I tried it at home, it was delicious! I also tried the rice cracker (I forgot the name) and it was very delicious too. Wish I bought more.

The total cost of our dinner (6 people) was around 12,000 Yen. It already included food, beverage, and desserts, but excluded souvenirs. I think it's a good price since most dinner price in other restaurants would be around 3,000 Yen per person. FYI, they had some promos such as discount if you post your coming on social media.

Talking about the service, the service was great too! The waiter & waitress were very kind and welcoming. They served us very well and so helpful. Surprisingly, one of the waitress was originally from Indonesia and she went to the same school as mine (but different year). She went to a college in Osaka and did a part-time job there.

The other waiter was Japanese but he could speak Indonesian a lil' bit as many Indonesian tourists came there. So he learnt Indonesian language by having conversation with the tourist. I had conversation with him while buying souvenirs. He's very informative, plus he was handsome haha.

When I was buying souvenirs, I noticed that there was a person taking photos of me. I didn't look back and thought that it might be just a tourist capturing another tourist who has different nationality. But then the waiter told me that the person was the owner of the restaurant. He sometimes took pictures with the customer and post it on their Facebook and Instagram. They also had guest book where the customer could creatively write anything using colorful markers.

My halal dining experience here was very satisfying. Good food, good price, great service, I would definitely recommend this restaurant for Muslim travelers.