A Trip to Japan Without Leaving the City

If you are visiting Domo Restaurant for the first time, you might wonder if you are in the right place. This multiple award-winning restaurant, at 1365 Osage Street, is very unassuming from the outside. Once you step inside though, you find yourself immersed in a Japanese country style farmhouse atmosphere. Domo bills itself as a “Restaurant, Garden and Museum”. When you eat outside, you are seated in a traditional Japanese garden,
with gorgeous ponds, growing bamboo, and exquisite red umbrellas shading the tables.

The restaurant serves traditional, authentic, country-style Japanese food. There are lots of choices on the menu, including a large variety of noodle, seafood, rice and teriyaki bowls and it’s hard not to glance over at the other tables to see what they’ve ordered, as all the choices look enticing.

You can explore the attached museum while you wait for your food to be served. There you see old photos, cooking utensils, actual Sake cups used by Samuri warriors during World War II, and hanging lanterns fashioned from branches and old newspapers. Wandering in the gardens, you learn more about the owner and head chef, Gaku Homma. He founded AHAN, (Aikido Humanitarian Active Network), a humanitarian network that cares for children around the world. Started in 2001, AHAN has built a number of orphanages and educational centers in Bangladesh, the Philippines, Thailand, Nepal and Myanmar.

Dining at Domo feels a bit like visiting an old-style country farmhouse in Japan, eating simple, hearty food in a lovely, serene atmosphere.