OSAKA ¨C When I heard there was a kushikatsu (deep-fried, skewered meat and vegetables) restaurant in Higashishinsaibashi that doubles as a shrine to the ¡°Godfather of Soul,¡± James Brown, I promptly got on the train and made my way to the 10-seat basement restaurant on Hachiman-suji street to see for myself.
Rhythm and Kushikatsu Agatta! is owned by singer Haruko Sakuragawa, who opened the restaurant in 2015 after working at a tonkatsu (deep-fried pork) eatery for six years.
¡°James Brown has a lot of songs that contain the phrase ¡®I got,¡¯ such as ¡®I got soul¡¯ and ¡®I got rhythm.¡¯ When he sings, ¡®I gotta,¡¯ it sounds like the word ¡®agatta,¡¯ which means fried in Japanese,¡± says Sakuragawa, explaining the origin of the restaurant¡¯s name.
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