My First Taste of Saiboshi from Osaka

I've eaten horse meat in raw basashi form a lot of times, but I never knew that there was a smoked version called saiboshi that is a specialty of southern Osaka until tonight. It was only toward the end of our meal did I notice that it was buried deep in the menu at this shop. It definitely got my attention, so I placed an order right away.

What surprised me was the texture: it was coarse and tasted like pastrami. Now, the serving here was garnished with soy sauce plus ginger puree and even garlic puree, and they suggested some shichimi pepper as well. I'd be happy to order it again, although it would probably be more for the novelty given that this was ultimately still lean without much of a unique taste to differentiate it.

By the way, this was from a chain in Osaka called Kushikatsu Tanaka, as we finally made it out to a proper kushikatsu shop with big trays of fried food on skewers, along with unlimited cabbage. It all fared fine, and the energetic pace of the staff kept things fun. But it was ultimately just a lot of fried batter in the end, which is why I was happy to have found that saiboshi above.