The name 'Rikuro Ojisan' (or 'Uncle Rikuro') is a very famous one in Osaka, if you're talking about desserts. The cheesecake is a highlight, but honestly everything they make is popular. Pudding, banana and pudding cake, matcha cake, apple pie...
(One other thing you can buy at Rikuro is their cream-filled custard cake roll. It's called the Rik-roll. I laughed out loud.)
There's a branch of this cheesecake mecca in Namba, fairly close to the Dotonbori. One of 9 in the Kansai region (it's that popular). When I made a split-second choice to buy a Rikuro cheesecake there the other night, the queue was like this:
And that's at 9pm on a Saturday night. Walk by any time the shop's open and it'll look pretty similar. I don't think I've ever seen that particular Rikuro open without a line outside. (2021 edit: this was pre-pandemic. No tourists, no queue. It'll look like this again in future, for sure.)
Fresh cheesecakes were wobbling off the production line at the speed of light. They had to be quick - someone in front of me ordered a whole batch of 6. Well, there went any prospect of getting 2, and the guy behind me is radiating anger and disappointment. How dare anyone be so opportunistic when it comes to dessert? So I stuck with just a single cheesecake.
I bounded home, ready to review this for you straight away. Striking while the cheesecake is hot, as you might say. And then I bumped into some friends at the door to my apartment building, and those food-filled plans went straight to hell. As did my cheesecake.
The 'just-baked' look is rounded, bouncy and super light. After a night in the fridge, my cheesecake looked more like I just hoiked it out of a hot bath.
Wrinkly, like a proper ojisan.
The texture is very light and soft, as is the flavour. It doesn't feel rich, or difficult to eat. It'd be easy to eat a whole cheesecake in one go.
Well, maybe if it tasted a bit less egg-y. Yes, I know there's meant to be egg in cheesecake. But, given the name, when the main flavour in a plain cheesecake isn't the cheese that's a little concerning. The taste of the Rikuro version is bordering on scrambled egg. It's really not that sweet.
I was regretting not eating a slice back when it was still warm. Luckily I didn't have to go back and fetch another fresh cake. The packaging helpfully suggested popping chilled slices into the microwave for 20-30 seconds.
In the charming illustrations on the side of the box, a slice of wrinkly cake magically became round and fluffy once more! Before it went in, my cake looked like this:
And after about 30 seconds in the microwave, it looked like this.
Yeah, the cake gave up on rejuvenation and slumped, defeated and overheated, across the plate. It was, mercifully, now warm. And tasted like warm scrambled egg instead. Mmmm.
One Rikuro Ojisan cheesecake is something in the region of 1,400 calories. Don't worry, you can't really taste them. With other cheesecakes, from the first bite you can feel the extra kilos sliding towards your hips. This is so fluffy and 'not rich' that 1,400 calories feels unreasonably heavy. Like eating an Aero and pretending it's only half the chocolate because of the bubbles...
Verdict: 8/10, mostly good but the egg is over-egged.