Hajime (* – Osaka)

I think that Hajime is a top tier experience. The cuisine is French and the menu is themed as a ‘Dialogue with the Earth’ that kind of takes you through different aspects of nature, even though sometimes it didn’t really make a lot of sense for the dish. Regardless, it’s a creative and tasty menu overall. Highly recommend this place if you’re ever in Osaka.

Going through the photos:

1. The entrance to Hajime is a bit dark. You enter through a sliding door and press a button on an intercom and another door slides open and someone takes you into the small lobby. The dining room has eight tables. You’re given a large menu printed on very nice paper. They explain the concept of the menu to you, about how this is some story about nature and the world and so on. 
2. Mori / Forest – The courses are named after nature, so the first one is Mori or Forest in English and was subtitled ‘moon reflected in the lake.’ The idea is a cep mushroom ball in a beef consomme where the mushroom ball is a reflection of the moon in a lake. Great first bite, the mushroom ball didn’t look very appetizing, but just explodes in your mouth and is delicious. 
3. Iso / Rocky Coast – A six part course, this was first arranged on the table and then they pour some dry ice into the seabed where the oysters are, and it creates a fog with a briny aroma. It went well with the bites here which were (A) oyster from Hiroshima with cucumber and yogurt, (B) shirako which was great, (C) shrimp with caviar, (D) uni with broccolini puree under a sea foam which was amazing, (E) some sort of kue chip with herring roe, and I forgot to label the mussel from Hiroshima which was the best bite of this set.
4. Kawa / River – This dish is presented as salmon going upstream in a river. An incredible salmon poached in oil placed over salmon roe, also includes hatcho miso, tomato, and sorrel. The salmon was just incredible and melted in your mouth. I think this is the best salmon I’ve ever had. 
5. Chikyu / Planet Earth – their signature dish, a salad made of 100 components, given to you on a plate almost as large as the table itself. The presentation here is a mountain with a cloud on it, the mountain slopes down to the green earth represented by various vegetables which eventually makes its way to the sea represented by the foam in the middle, or something like that. The recommendation is to mix it together and eat. An amazingly good salad with different textures and tastes. The menu has a list of all of the ingredients used in this dish, and it’s impressive!
6. Umi / sea – Flow – I think this course is about the flow of water in the seas. It’s a tilefish/amadai with an impossibly crispy skin while having the most tender and moist flesh. Incredible tilefish, easily the best I’ve ever had. The brown plant part is a sauce that is embedded in the plant impression in the plate, they then add a delicious dashi to the plate to cause some of the ingredients like coriander, eggplant, sea lettuce, etc. on the dish to ‘flow’ around. Best dish of the night!
7. Some weird bread – it’s a potato bread with two types of seaweed butter. Not the best seaweed butter I’ve had (sorry, Harbor House’s one is a lot better). Not the best bread course, but probably the weirdest presented one I’ve had.
8. Umi / Sea – Relation – Norwegian lobster at the top against the rock with a lobster pasta at the bottom, both are covered by sea foam. There’s a bit of uncured ham, a quail’s egg, a mantis shrimp around, too. Lots going on here. Wonderful lobster.
9. Hakai to douka / destruction and assimilation – described as a foie gras sushi, it had foie gras, asian hazel, pumpkin, and black pepper. There’s some sweetness here from the pumpkin, a bit of crunchy texture as well. A very good bite.
10. Kibou / Hope – dew – the palate cleanser. It had the strongest taste of pine I’ve ever had. It wasn’t good. You know the meal is amazing when the only bite that didn’t work was a tiny palette cleanser.
11. Kibou / Hope – Mother Earth – I wasn’t sure about the theme of this part of the menu. But this is venison with some squash puree, beets, parsnip, and matcha. Venison with matcha was kind of interesting. A good dish.
12. Kibou / Hope – Sky – This is a duck that’s first presented to you showing it being smoked from cherry blossom wood. They then take off the cover and plate the duck for you. For the previous venison dish and this one, they ask if you want a reduced portion, and I was getting pretty full by this point so went with the reduced duck. This was prepared with black garlic, small onion, juniper. It was a solid dish.
13. Kibou / Hope – Field – this dish is fresh cheese, apricot, and chrysanthemum. The dish is presented in two parts. The first is a bowl of ice that holds the apricot puree under the fresh cheese. A bit of the cheese is frozen so that if you eat it and exhale from your nose, smoke comes out. The second is a chrysanthemum liquid hanging in a vial, you’re supposed to pour this vial into your cheese ice bowl and mix. Absolutely delicious and fun.
14. Ai / Love – Kindness – an almond dish, basically almond essence water with delicate spherified almond that just exploded with almond flavor. Overall, a very refreshing and light dish. A highlight among the desserts. I jokingly asked for a second bowl.
15. Ai / Love – Spread to the World – the last of the themed dishes. You’re given a piece of paper that shows how the chef came up with this dish. The dish is strawberries different ways, with raspberry and sable. They pour a warm strawberry sauce into the strawberry vase which melts it and sauce goes around. Another light and refreshing dessert. Very good.
16. Secret Desserts – at this point we’re now done with the theme, but they say they have some ‘secret desserts’ or really off menu desserts if you’re not too full. Sure, why not. They were nice. The top one was a warmed citrus which was very good. 
17. Final Bites – last of the non-themed bites, it’s a series of six desserts. I’m already stuffed by this point, but I manage to eat everything except for most of the cypress flavored cotton candy. The other bites were various apples, panna cotta, hazelnut chocolate, etc. Apparently the middle of the cotton candy is an edible candy heart. I was at one of the last tables, and I don’t think any table that left was able to eat that last candy heart. This was a big meal!

Overall, a wonderful meal which lasted about 4 hours. They also have some Japanese wines to try which were interesting. Though I think the pours were the tiniest I've ever seen. At the end, the chef met us in the lobby and chatted for a bit.

I’d place Hajime among the best fine dining experiences I’ve been lucky enough to try. It is expensive, particularly compared to some other good places in Japan, but I think it’s worth it for a top tier experience that is fun, creative, and delicious. 

One note is that it seems that the menu doesn’t change much for first time visitors. I wonder how the menu would change for a repeat visit.