We enjoyed a classy meal and a night on the town in Yokohama.
We got off work early and took the train to Yokohama, where we walked the Minato Mirai waterfront to the World Porters Mall. Our hosts had made dinner reservations for us at Maimon Restaurant, upstairs on the 5th floor. The decor was distinctly high-class, not like the homey Za-Watami Izakaya experience of the other night.
All work and no play makes Nate a dull boy.
Spending full work days in a single conference room is not the most fun thing to do. Our workshop’s organizers realized that, so they made sure to include one “team building” activity which involved getting off work a little early, and taking a train to Yokohama to have dinner in Minato Mirai. It was about a half-hour trip from Shonandai to the Sakuragicho station where we disembarked and joined the madding crowd.
My colleagues were all wondering where to go for dinner around our hotel in Shonandai. Fortunately, Akiko (our Japanese friend who gave us the excellent Cream of Corn Soup recipe) had scouted out our area before we arrived. She recommended the Za-Watami Izakaya restaurant, right next to the Shonandai Station.
We’re big fans of ramen. We try to eat them wherever we are. Our favorite in Hawaii is Yotteko-ya. Our favorite in San Jose was Tokushima do Henkotsu (but they closed down) and in Singapore, we found Ippudo to be really good too.
Sure seems like we are into tonkotsu style more than any other type of ramen, though I enjoy my fair share of shoyu ramen. So anyway, when I was searching for where to go for ramen in Japan, I came across several sites talking about the Raumen Museum in Yokohama. It sounded really intriguing and when I mentioned it to Nate, he thought it was worth visiting.
So that evening after a full day and night of traveling to Japan, heading to Yokohama and seeing the sights, we decided to take the subway up to Shin-Yokohama and have dinner at the Raumen Museum. Truly, it wasn’t so much a visit to learn about ramen and its history. We were there for ramen!