The Pig and Whistle　English Pub

The Pig and Whistle is a British pub that is one of the longest serving pubs catering mostly to the expat community like myself and Japanese business workers.

It is located on the shin Midosuji Street in Shinsaibashi near the South Korean embassy which always has a blue bus out the front with a red siren, out side the bar there is a British flag and the bar is located on the third or fourth floor.

The bar it self is a typical British style pub, a little dark and the furniture and bar all made of wood. They serve typical pub food fish and chips, chicken and chips, bangers and mash etc starting at about 800 yen roughly $7.50 US and $8 Australian. The food is simple served in good proportions.

They also serve the usual Guiness and Kilkenny pints as well as Japanese draft beer. Pints are 650 yen which is the going price in Japan. Roughly $6 us and $6.50 Australian.

There is no happy hour however at the pub which is unusual for a bar that caters for ex pats and travellers. However from 5pm to around 8.30pm you can get a pint and 1 meal for 1200 yen $11 US $12 Australian.

The bar does not a pool table but does have at least 1 dart board maybe 2.

On the night that I went there I went with 2 co workers and met numerous people an easy place to go by yourself and find someone to chat with.

On that night I met a foreigner who was on a Visa run from teaching English in Korea.

An Australian who I happen to be on the same football team in Australia that I had no idea was living in Japan. A small world isn't it.

A goup of Japanese who worked for a real estate company who couldn't speak English so communicated in Japanese.Overall a good night started at 6pm and finished at 2.30am so recovering with a hang over today writing this review.

By the way there is also a pig and whistle in Kyoto which is also popular place to go and there used to be one in Umeda another area of Osaka but unfortunately it closed.

We walked down there last night and it has now officially closed down.

Shame!

The Pig and Whistle is on the second floor, and we climbed the stairs to find a "no smoking sign" prominently displayed. Excellent! How rare for Japan!

It was a false alarm though - there's no smoking allowed in the LOBBY. Smoke all you want in the bar though! (And everyone was.)

The decor at The Pig is dark wood, with flags on the ceiling, and a couple of traditional (non-electronic) dart boards. There is a nice bar, but no bar seating. You place your order standing at the bar and the drinks and food are either served to you right away or brought to your table.

The Guinness is the perfect temperature and delicious as always. The beer prices are competitive, maybe slightly lower, than elsewhere in Osaka.

A single pour is quite small in Japan (compared to US) so Steve ordered a double of Yamizaki whisky, which was about $12USD. I have nothing to compare this to, but it seemed expensive.

For dinner, I ordered the Camembert cheese plate (there were three types of cheese plates on offer), which was served overly chilled, on saltine crackers. Seemed a little odd, but it was tasty. Then I had the tomato salad, which was very good despite being a little overwhelmed with dressing.

Steve had the fish & chips, which he described as "adequate." The portion was somewhat smaller than you would normally expect of an English Pub. The food was piping hot. I sampled his chips and found them to be completely delicious.

The client mix was a good mix of Japanese, English, Canadian, America, and some others of indeterminate nationality.

Bottom line: Pig & Whistle is definitely a good choice if you are hankering for a well priced Guinness and the comfortable familiarity of an English Pub.