Last Updated on 3日 ago by Nomambo
There is a road we sometimes take when driving from home toward Mito.
It feels like a shortcut rather than a destination.
We do not know its name.
We simply turn onto it when it happens to be convenient, passing houses, small businesses, and the occasional car going the other way.
But there is one place along the road that I have noticed for some time.
There always seemed to be people waiting outside.
On August 8, we happened to pass by with our children.
My wife got out of the car first to take a look inside.
A moment later, she turned back and made a large circle with both hands.
It meant: It isn’t very crowded.
We hurried out of the car and into the restaurant with the children.
The ticket machine was immediately in front of us.
I had been paying so much attention to the queue that I had never thought about what we would actually order.
Now there were already people coming in behind us.
There was no time for a strategy.
I chose the first ramen that appeared on the screen and ordered the large size.
The kitchen was surprisingly spacious, but there were only a few people working inside.
When I was a university student, I once worked at a ramen restaurant myself.
On a busy weekend lunch shift, there could be nearly ten staff members in the kitchen and dining room.
Here, the atmosphere was different.
Perhaps the restaurant is run by a family.
Perhaps they simply operate with a small, efficient team. I did not know.
But seeing only a few people moving around a large kitchen made me wonder if this might be one reason why a queue forms outside.
If the restaurant is full, customers receive a numbered ticket after ordering.
When their number is called, they are shown to a table.
That day, though, we had managed to get inside without waiting.
We ordered three different dishes: shoyu ramen, shio ramen, and abura soba.
The ramen noodles were thick and heavily curly, quite different from the straight noodles used for the abura soba. The ramen broth was clear, with noticeable aromas of dashi, chicken oil, and seafood.
The overall impression reminded me of ramen from the Kitakata tradition in Fukushima — simple-looking, but with more going on beneath the surface.
The char siu was also different from the very soft, almost melting style that has become common in recent years.
It had a firmer texture, with the reddish edge characteristic of a more old-fashioned style of roast pork.
The char siu ramen seemed to be particularly popular.
None of this was something I had gone looking for that day.
It was simply a restaurant I had passed many times on a road whose name I did not even know.
The queue had been the thing I remembered.
And now, whenever I pass that road again, I suspect I will remember the restaurant too.
Small Notes
Location: Menraitei, Hitachinaka, Ibaraki, Japan(Google Maps Link : here)
Access: The restaurant is along a local road in Hitachinaka City. We visited by car.
A practical tip: The ticket machine does not offer an English-language display, but the menu is limited and each item is shown with a photograph and a clearly displayed price.
Even without reading Japanese, choosing a basic dish should be fairly straightforward.
