Two Weeks of Eating in Japan, Chapter 9.

For The European, the disappointment of the trip was queuing about fifteen minutes for “butaman” (pork buns) at 551 Horai (officially called ‘Gogoichi’, which translates to “551” in Japanese), at Osaka station, only to find out when she got to the front that this particular concession only sold frozen buns, for weary salarymen to take home and warm up. The ready-to-serve buns that we enjoyed on the train from to Koyasan were at the other end of the station, and our Shinkansen was leaving in minutes. She was fuming all the way back to Tokyo, partly because I told her I might have seen the ‘frozen’ sign but didn’t really register it.

Gogoichi’s butaman were missed terribly. The very unfrozen ones we enjoyed as the train climbed through the valley and up the hills to our monastery lodgings were the best buns of all time, and I have had my fair share of these over the years. Plump, teeming and packed full of sausage meat (the buns, not my guts), the buns were boxed up with a little sachet of strong mustard that complemented them well. They were similar to a traditional Greggs sausage roll in that they are homely, comforting pies of love, but elevated through the quality of the meat, spiced to perfection and not too heavy. We couldn’t get enough of them. After the frozen failure, we never found a Gogoichi again, despite our best efforts, and left for the U.K. a day later, pining for them enormously.