Nankai

Sometimes a rice bowl alone is not quite enough; Nankai’s salted pork rice bowl set comes with mini udon as well. The bowl is served with a soft-boiled onsen egg and cabbage, plus mini kake udon or soba, and is listed at 1,050 yen. One diner who ordered it recalled enjoying pork belly seasoned with salt and spring onion, stir-fried vegetables and a soft-cooked egg with rice. The mini udon, they added, was just the right size, with a well-balanced broth. With the bowl to eat alongside the noodles, it is an appealing lunch choice when you want both rice and noodles.

For a noodle-led meal, the curry options are available with udon or soba. One diner who tried the curry soba reported that it contained plenty of meat and had a tasty curry broth. Another, who paired curry ramen with a mini egg rice bowl, found the noodles closer in style to Japanese curry ankake soba than to ramen. Even with a similar curry flavour, choosing udon or soba—or ramen with a mini rice bowl—makes for a different sort of meal.

There are set meals and other rice bowls to choose from, too. The bean sprout stir-fry set is listed at 830 yen and comes with miso soup and mini kake udon or soba; the vegetable stir-fry set, which also includes mini noodles, is 1,050 yen. A diner who ordered the daily set reported that the vegetable stir-fry included egg, which may help if you are deciding what to order. Rice-bowl options include egg rice and konoha-don, while a mini egg rice bowl with mini kake is another option for a lighter meal.

This diner in Nishiwaki, Hirano Ward, Osaka, offers a clear choice of set meals for lunch, as well as combinations of noodles and rice bowls. Listed opening hours are 11:00–16:00, Monday to Saturday; the restaurant is closed on Sundays. Payment is cash only.