Osaka Expo Showcases Distinctive, Delectable Cuisines from Around World

Osaka, May 14 (Jiji Press)–The 2025 World Exposition offers opportunities to sample traditional dishes from around the globe, including those that are usually difficult to access in Japan, ranging from Southeast Asian and Middle Eastern foods to European cuisines.

Such items can be found in foreign pavilions at the Expo, which opened April 13 and runs through Oct. 13 on Yumeshima, an artificial island in the western Japan city of Osaka. Some chefs incorporate their local foods with Japanese elements or adjust their serving styles to help Japanese visitors experience what Japan shares with other countries or find the dishes easier to enjoy.

Luxembourg

At a restaurant in the Luxembourg Pavilion, located in the Connecting Lives Zone of the Expo venue, visitors can enjoy traditional foods from the European country bordered by Belgium, Germany and France, including “feierstengszalot,” a beef salad dish, this time presented as roast beef salad in a brioche, and “gromperekichelchen,” a kind of potato fritter.

Finding a Luxembourg restaurant in Japan is “nearly impossible,” Alain Hostert, the restaurant chef, says.

The pavilion restaurant offers a special dessert that changes every two weeks, featuring creations from different pastry chefs based in Luxembourg.

During the first two weeks of the Osaka Expo, guests had the chance to discover a dessert created by Yurie Kiyohara, a Japanese pastry chef, who is from Osaka Prefecture, according to Hostert. It is a cake featuring Japanese matcha green tea and mirabelle plums, a signature fruit of Luxembourg.

The Luxembourg-Japan fusion dessert represents an example of “bringing people together and connecting people,” Hostert says.

Makoto Harada, 32, a visitor to the Osaka Expo, ordered feierstengszalot brioche at the Luxembourg Pavilion restaurant. “It was good,” said Harada, who has traveled to Luxembourg. “I didn’t feel many difficult features (in the food). I think it goes well with the taste of Japanese people.”

Hungary

Available at Miska Kitchen & Bar in the Hungary Pavilion in the Saving Lives Zone are traditional foods and wines from the Central European country.

Balazs Csapody, who oversees the restaurant’s concept and menus, explains that paprika has a major role in Hungarian food, especially in modern times, due to the influence of the Ottoman Empire.

The Ottoman Empire ruled part of Hungary from the 16th century to the late 17th century.

The restaurant’s menu items featuring paprika include Chicken Paprikash with Egg Dumplings, or chicken braised in a creamy, paprika-infused sauce, for a main dish and Cold Stuffed Peppers with Cottage Cheese Cream and Tomato Salsa for a starter.

Csapody, who runs a restaurant and hotel with his family near Lake Balaton in western Hungary, also says that Hungarians love soups. The menu at Miska Kitchen & Bar includes Goulash Soup with Confit Potatoes, a classic Hungarian dish made with beef seasoned with paprika.

Japanese and Hungarians share a passion for eating, Csapody, a gastronomy expert, says. Utilizing the original flavors of ingredients is what he likes about Japanese food, and this is common to both Japanese and Hungarian cuisines, Csapody says.

“I came to this pavilion as I wanted to eat food from a country I’ve never been to,” a 63-year-old woman from Nara Prefecture, near Osaka, said.

Haruka Shimo, 21, a student from Kyoto Prefecture, western Japan, who was waiting in line to enter the restaurant, said, “I’m learning about cuisines around the world at my college, so I’m visiting restaurants in Expo pavilions.”

Bahrain

Dishes highlighted in a cafe at the pavilion of Bahrain, an island country in the Middle East, include skewers, croquettes, sandwiches and date cake created by its chef, Tala Bashmi.

“The idea I had with this cafe menu is to present foods” that people from Japan may think are “familiar” when they look at them but realize are actually “traditional flavors” of Bahrain when they taste them, Bashmi says. “I really hope that people can get to taste and experience something new, and become more familiar with it.”

Explaining the Eggs and Tomato Sandwich on the menu, Bashmi shares that Bahrain’s traditional breakfast of eggs and tomato is typically enjoyed with freshly baked flatbread. Inspired by Japanese convenience-store egg sandwiches, she recreated the dish as a soft milk bread sandwich, making it easier to eat.

The dish uses seasonings such as daqoos spice. “Spices are very important for our food,” she says, noting that this is a major difference between foods in Bahrain and in Japan, with spices such as turmeric, cardamom, saffron and coriander seeds used in local foods in Bahrain. Ginger, garlic and onions are basic ingredients in Bahraini cuisine, she adds.

Tikka, also on the cafe’s menu, is a street food made with beef or lamb marinated with black lime and cooked on charcoal with a skewer. The cafe offers the food in a sandwich style, which is more familiar to Japanese people but not part of Bahrain’s traditional food, Bashmi says.

She says she noticed that people in Japan do not like things to be too sweet while people in Bahrain can have sweet tooth. “I’m trying to find a balance,” she says, referring to the desserts served at the cafe, including date cake, a popular dessert in Bahrain. Dates are a kind of palm fruit.

A 40-year-old woman from Osaka Prefecture who ate the egg and tomato sandwich said: “It’s spicy, so I think opinions may be divided. But I liked it.” She said she had never tried Bahraini dishes before.

The Bahrain Pavilion is located in the Empowering Lives Zone.

Malaysia

Malaysia presents a range of halal foods, including “roti canai,” a flatbread with curry, and “nasi lemak,” a dish served with rice cooked in coconut milk, at a restaurant in its pavilion, also in the Empowering Lives Zone.

“I thought it would have a very strong flavor, but it was actually easy to eat,” a man, 67, from Nara said after eating roti canai.

While the restaurant offers “heritage food with some international flavor,” Malaysia, with a big Islamic community, has a “very strong halal industry,” a spokesperson of the Malaysia Pavilion says.

Finding halal food is still difficult in Japan, which is an obstacle for Muslim tourists to the East Asian nation, another spokesperson of the pavilion says.

“One of the things we would like to collaborate or expand our market in Japan is definitely in terms of halal recognition,” the spokesperson says.

“Through the collaboration between Malaysia and Japan, in line with the Osaka Expo 2025, we do believe that most countries can expand their horizons in terms of collaborating…especially in halal diplomacy,” the spokesperson says.

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