Editor’s note: ramen occupies a place in my heart and in my soul. And while I prefer gourmet ramen, even the instant variety still has meaning in my life. While I have not been to Yokohama, I’ve had incredible ramen experiences all over Japan, but now Sam Spector has inspired a ramen pilgrimage for my next Japan trip. For more of Sam’s writing, make sure to click here to visit his index page.
When I got my first college acceptance, I drove to the grocery store and bought myself a pack of Top Ramen for a quarter to make for dinner that night. Knowing that I was college-bound, I figured that to celebrate I would start acting like a college student and eat something that I knew I would have many more times in the coming years. A little over a decade ago, I went into a restaurant in Los Angeles that explained to me that they were a ramen restaurant. I was a little confused seeing the prices and I stated that I thought that ramen was only a quarter; they explained to me that this was gourmet ramen, and through this experience, I discovered what would soon become a rage across the country. When I went to Japan, I knew that I would have to have a couple of good ramen meals while in the country, and I found that I was not alone in this plan. I remember meeting on a train some Australian YouTubers who had come to Japan just to make videos about ramen and sitting in a ramen restaurant in Kyoto where you paid at a vending machine for the ramen. However, the best place in not just Japan, but the world, to visit for ramen enthusiasts is Yokohama.
Yokohama is right next door to Tokyo and has 3.8 million inhabitants, making it Japan’s second largest city, and combined with Tokyo the largest metropolitan area in the world. Though in the 1850s it was just a small fishing village, today it is a major urban center with numerous attractions, among which are not one, but two ramen museums. For the first museum, take the subway from Tokyo and get off at the Nippon Maru Memorial Park, where a 1930s sailing ship sits as a museum, then walk across a beautiful pedestrian causeway across the water to a small island where the Yokohama Cosmo World amusement park is with its large Ferris wheel. Right by the Ferris wheel is a large square red building which is the CupNoodles Museum. I talked about ramen for the poor college students and the gourmet one, and this museum is dedicated to the former. The CupNoodles Museum is dedicated to the instant ramen in a disposable cup that revolutionized the world in 1971, which was called Cup O’ Noodles in the United States until 1993. The museum also has a focus on the life of the inventor of the product, Momofuku Ando (1910-2007). There are numerous exhibits on Ando showing his thought process, his life story, a movie on how he overcame adversity, and a recreation of a shed where he created chicken ramen. The museum is largely interactive and experiential and is fun for people of all ages, and there are regular school groups of elementary students there. As a result, make sure you get to the museum early in the day as I missed out on a couple of exhibits due to their crowds and being close to closing time.
In the CupNoodles Park, you get the experience of feeling like a noodle going through the manufacturing process in the factory from being made to being shipped. There is a Noodles Bazaar where you can experience noodles from around the world that Momofuku Ando experienced in his travels. There is also a Chicken Ramen Factory, where visitors get to knead, spread, steam, and fry noodles and chicken to make Ando’s signature dish by hand. The highlight of the museum is the My CupNoodles Factory, where you get your own cup to decorate and choose your own toppings and base to create your very own ramen creation. The museum is silly, fun, and a great spot to take memorable photos.
For dinner, head to the Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum across town. This museum was opened in 1994 and has a main level exhibit on the history of ramen. The main attraction of the museum is the food court downstairs. Instant noodles were invented in post-war Tokyo in 1958 when the country was poor and still rebuilding, and the food court is an amusement park built to replicate the streets of Tokyo at the time. The ceiling is even painted to look like an evening sky; there are alleyways, old motorcycles, and American movie posters showing the period of post-war American occupation in Tokyo. There are seven unique ramen restaurants to choose from, each one with its own style of ramen. The restaurants have different bases, flavors, and thickness of noodles, and also styles from different parts of Japan. It is a popular date spot for locals and also a must-visit for tourists, meaning that visiting requires some patience for long lines, with the more popular ones like ISSOU often having 200 customers waiting. While you can wander the alleys and in front of the restaurants, you must buy a bowl of ramen if you are going to stay in a restaurant. As I do not eat non-kosher meat, most of the ramen was off limits to me; however, there were two restaurants that did serve vegetarian options. One of the restaurants is Komurasaki, which has been in business since 1954, and is the only restaurant to maintain a presence in the museum since it opened, with elaborate tonkotsu-style ramen. The other restaurant that currently has a vegetarian option is the Ryu Shanghai Honten restaurant, which has ramen that is focused on red spicy miso. Check the restaurants though prior to visiting not only so you can know which ones you want to hit, but also, the restaurants come and go leading to new experiences every couple of years.
With a trip to Japan comes lots of fun, over-the-top moments and also some of the best food in the world. To combine all of these elements into a memorable day, while still feeling cultured enough to say you went to “museums”, head to Yokohama and visit the CupNoodles Museum and the Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum for one of the most fun and delicious museum experiences that you will have anywhere in the world.
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