01 / ABOUT THE PLACE
About this place
There is more than one way to enjoy the broth in oden: try it in another dish as well as with the simmered ingredients. One of Cosmos’s signature dishes, the deep-fried lotus-root dumpling, is made by mashing lotus root, shaping it into a dumpling and deep-frying it before serving it with oden broth. Pair it with classic oden to taste the broth in a different form from the ingredients that soak it up as they simmer. There is an assortment of 5 oden items chosen by the kitchen, or you can select individual pieces such as daikon with shredded kelp, deep-fried tofu and egg. The oden also includes chicken meatballs mixed with cartilage and large, chewy kuruma-fu wheat gluten, so it is worth choosing a few different textures.
Other dishes that make use of the broth include a mini curry simmered in oden stock and Inaniwa udon flavoured with yuzu pepper. For a final drink, sake can be mixed with oden broth. It is a welcome range for anyone who wants to build a meal around the broth, from the first dish to the last sip.
For rice, consider the Uwajima-style sea bream rice. Rather than a bowl of cooked rice with ingredients mixed through, it is a dish of sea bream sashimi and condiments tossed with a special sauce, served in the style of egg-over-rice. Cosmos offers a different kind of meal at lunchtime, too. One diner reported that the sauce went particularly well with the tonkatsu in the daily set meal, which also came with an oden item and salad. Another diner said the generous portion of fillet cutlet in a different daily set was satisfying. Lunch suits a hearty set meal, while the evening menu offers a chance to take your time over oden and sake.
The sake list includes Hatsuyukihai and Rumiko no Sake; the latter is described as bearing the restaurant’s original label. There is counter seating, making it an option for a solo meal, with the flexibility to choose a broth-based dish and a drink at your own pace.
