Flamed up ramen – Sakaiminato, Japan

This started off as a travel blunder… we arrived off peak and when the whole avenue (feature of the town) was closed. It was my fault, we finished with Conan museum early and I thought we could squeeze it in. So typical of me. For Japan, I really do tend to arrive first and think later. Most of the time it works like a charm. There’s so much information pamphlet locally that it has never been necessary.

Like I said, everything was CLOSED. It was late noon and we were hungry (travel with a hungry husband was a bad idea). The town was a ghost town literately. We saw NO one walking around at all.

Quick recap, when Sakaiminato was the yokai themed up town in Tottori prefecture. Cult status manga style – Gegege no Kitaro. Check an older post of mine.

Starving and realised that there wasn’t even a convenient store O_o we were doomed!!!

We walked along the creepy deserted street and found an unassuming ramen store. Classic lantern on the outside and stuff.

We were SAVED!!!!  We tried the classic, shoyu, miso and the cold noodle. Yes, we had 2 bows of noodle each. The classic was SOOOOOO yum. The chef made his own noodles from scratch 😀

He served ‘hard’ noodle. It was definitely al dente cooked. WONDERFUL stuff and mega cheap at JPY 390!!! The soup was flavoursome and not too heavy. That smell!!! He also added the flamed up touch to the corn. He torched all the toppings. It smelt SOOO divine. Just yumminess!!!

We were the only customer at that time, so we got to chat with the chef. It turned out that his daughter was the winner of a local pageant. He was one proud dad. Between himself , a cat and his wife ran the place. It was his wife’s night off.

Although we didn’t quite get to do what we came for, it was just such a pleasant experience. We definitely ‘stopped to smell the roses’ that evening.

How to get here?

Destination: Sakaiminato Station (JR rail)

There’s only 1 train per hour between Yonago and Sakaiminato. JPY320 one way, but it is included in the JR pass if you have one.

If you want to take the themed up train, you must take the train from Yonago station 😉

The closest large JR stations to Yonago are…

• Matsue: 22min to 37min depending on the train type
• Tottori: 62min to 131min depending on the train type
• Okayama: 126min to 253min depending on the train type & route

Official website: http://www.sakaiminato.net/foreign/

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