Shinno-Sai Matsuri (Festival) in Osaka

Ichiran Ramen

We finally got around to hitting up Ichiran Ramen which has gone international and now have locations in New York. So maybe if you have cravings for tonkotsu-style ramen and don’t want to make a trip to Japan, then that might be a closer option? I’m afraid of the prices there though, in Times Square. Here in Japan, the prices are pretty typical for a ramen place, with most options starting under 1000 yen ($8 USD).

There are lots of locations in Tokyo, but we stumbled upon one in Umeda and had to try it out. The place is famous for the small individual booths, where you get to ramen, free from distractions and even your partner who might be sitting next to you. It’s also interesting that you don’t need any human interaction with the staff either, because who wants social interaction when you’re intent on experiencing their famous ramen! /s.

Step 1, make your order choices at the vending machine and receive a receipt to hand off to the staff as you enter the sitting area. Vending machines to buy food in restaurants are actually pretty common, it must save on staff costs for a cashier, reduce errors in orders, and saves time for the customer who can leave as soon as they are done eating. They do let you order extras or more dishes from your booth too later, so they have that covered too.

Hang out in the booth, and the staff will open a little trap door to serve your ramen right in front. No need to make eye contact with the staff! The instructions for the place are in English too, so very helpful for the many tourists that come visit. More restaurants should do this.

There are some wooden blocks on the right side of the booth, which you can use the call button and present to the staff for help with common requests. One in particular was funny, you could let them know your neighbors are too noisy or distracting. I presume they would move you to another booth!

The ramen was great! There are many great ramen places in town, so it’s hard to rank this place over others. However, this is the one that became famous, maybe more for their unique experience with the individual booths. I gotta say though, there is fierce competition for ramen so the ones that are still standing are all quite tasty. Often you find several ramen shops within a couple blocks in a busy area, and you get the luxury of choosing based on the type of broth or specialty they serve. We have been on a bonito flavored binge lately, but M loves tonkotsu (pork flavored) so we do enjoy that a lot too! I’m sure we’ll be back to Ichiran sometime, especially when we have visitors who want to give it a go.

Visitors

Speaking of which, my parents were visiting and stayed with us a few days. We got them a guest room in our building and it was like a nice hotel room on the 29th floor for a fraction of the cost! The reservations fill up quickly though, especially on weekends. We look forward to having more guests in the coming year! Feel free to reach out if you can make it out, we’d love to see ya.

Shinno-Sai Matsuri

The Shinno-Sai Matsuri is the last festival of the year, and our first since we’ve been in Japan. It’s hard to believe we’ve been here for a few months, but hadn’t been to many festivals yet. Some were canceled due to Covid, and some were during the summer when we were too busy with our travels and home hunting.

Usually festivals are centered around a shrine, and unfortunately the one for this festival was too crowded with a long line so we didn’t go inside to check it out. However, there was plenty of street food, carnival type games and fun foods. The festival was held over a couple days, and the night we went was before a holiday so it was quite crowded and went pretty late into the evening.

We tried some squid omelet/pancake, it was pretty yummy.

Plenty of fried chicken, yakisoba, takoyaki and the typical street foods. We had some beef skewers.

What made the festival extra great, was one of M’s classmate’s family invited us over for drinks at their place afterwards. They happen to live on the same street as the festival, so we ate and drank too much, and cabbed it back home after midnight! Awesome fun:)