OMUSUBI GONBEI
Address: 27 rue des Petits Champs 75001 Paris
Access: Palais Royal Musée du Louvre Station (Metro line 1,7), Pyramides Station (Metro line 7,14), Bourse Station (Metro line 3)
Opening hours: Everyday from 11h to 21h
Price: 2-10€
Rue des Petits Champs has an easy access to whatever you want to see in Paris. Located next to Palais Royal and in between Louvre Museum and Opera Garnier. A Japanese restaurant, Omusubi Gonbei opened on this street last year. Its speciality is of course “Omusubi”, which is indispensable for Japanese daily meals.
Omusubi is a rice ball filled with an ingredient like grilled salmon, pickled plum, etc. Japanese people eat it very often and in various occasions, as breakfast, as lunch, as snack, and even as a light dinner. Since it’s a palm-sized and easily portable, it is perfect as picnic food!
The restaurant is tidy with a welcoming atmosphere. Most customers come here for takeaway but the they also offer a little eating space. Every type of Omusubi looks good, it may make your choice even harder…
Omusubi Gonbei cares a lot about the quality of rice. To make customers enjoy fresh and delicious rice, the restaurant imports brown rice from Japan and polishes it on site. They also choose rice farmers who practice eco-friendly method.
The most popular flavour is grilled salmon (the ones on the upper left). The restaurant only uses salmon qualified as “Label Rouge”, which is a quality assurance defined by French law. This Omusubi is also recommended the most by the restaurant, because as it’s simple, we can appreciate the taste of ingredients.
We can find Omusubi Gonbei restaurants in Japan too, but this colourful Omusubi of shiso & pickled radish flavour can be found only in Paris! Besides this flavour, there are two other Paris exclusive flavours: Olive & Tomate, Edamame & Baby sardines.
The restaurant also offers some side dishes like karaage (fried chicken) or edamame, that goes well with Omusubi. If you are very hungry, you can order a meal set which includes 2 omusubi, some karaage and a dessert (8.5−11€).
While you are traveling, if you are a bit tired of French food which is superb but sometimes a little too heavy, come to Omusubi Gonbei and have a light and delicious meal made with rice!
We recommend to takeaway and have a picnic in the Palais Royal park, the sight is beautiful!
To know more about the Palais Royal park, see this article: "TOP 5 PARKS IN SPRING OF PARIS"
Author: Rei Nishiyama
Photographer: Vincent Sacau