Menya Dougen
Haisai! This is CULT.
Originally, Cultravel was a blog dedicated to Okinawa, but when I returned to Korea it simply became Cultravel. I’ll share stories from the various countries I’ve lived in.
Today I’ll tell you about a restaurant I loved most while living in Okinawa and think is the most delicious: Menya Dougen (麺や 堂幻). I truly love this shop’s Tsukemen, and if you come to Okinawa and can only visit one restaurant, I’d of course choose this place. I can confidently say the Tsukemen is the very best.
Location
Menya Dogen is located on Maejima (前島), just off Kokusai-dori.
They only serve lunch on Sundays, and are closed on Mondays and their opening hours are 11:30 AM to 3:00 PM, and 5:00 PM to 9:30 PM.
There are coin-operated parking lots nearby, but this is a residential area and the parking spaces are very small and tight, so finding parking can be quite difficult. For that reason, we recommend parking at this spot (Google Maps) and walking a short distance to eat. It’s very spacious there, so parking is easy.
Menya Dogen
This is what the entrance to Menya Dogen looks like. It has a slightly long-established, old-shop feel and mostly caters to locals. It’s about 500 meters from Kokusai-dori, one of Okinawa’s main tourist spots, so it’s a bit of a walk from there, but the tsukemen here is so good I definitely recommend you try it.
The interior isn’t particularly fancy. Even so, it’s one of the restaurants I’ve visited most often while living in Okinawa. I went there so frequently that I ended up chatting with the owner fairly often. The last meal I had before leaving Okinawa was also at Menya Dogen. Personally, I really like this place.
Ordering from a meal ticket vending machine
This restaurant accepts PayPay and other QR-code payments. Unfortunately credit cards can’t be used, so unless you can use those QR apps (for example if you’re Japanese or Chinese), assume you’ll need to pay in cash. QR payments are available in Korea too, but I don’t recommend KakaoPay because of its personal data leak issues.
The ticket machine is an old model, so new 1,000-yen bills won’t fit — if you give a new bill at the counter they’ll change it for an older one. Large bills also won’t go into the machine, so 5,000- or 10,000-yen notes can be exchanged at the counter as well.
And the menu I most recommend is the No.1 Tsukemen, the top-left button. No.13 Special Tsukemen comes with extra chashu and nori, but at Menya Dogen the noodles and the sauce are the key, so pick according to your taste. I usually ordered the No.1 Tsukemen.
Tsukemen
All the photos were taken one by one on each of my visits to Menya Dogen. I love Menya Dogen’s tsukemen this much. Tsukemen is similar to the zaru soba style, where thick noodles like udon are dipped into a sauce. At this place the noodles are cold and the sauce is warm, and personally I find cold noodles much tastier than warm ones.
How to eat it: you get a bowl of noodles and a bowl of sauce — take a little noodles, dip them into the sauce, and eat. Some people eat very slowly, and the sauce can end up getting cold before you finish. There’s a microwave under the ticket vending machine where you placed your order, so you can warm it up there and finish enjoying it.
I take less than three minutes to eat a bowl, so I don’t need to use the microwave.
You dip it briefly like this and eat it. Just imagining it makes my mouth water. A taste you’ll want to have again.
This is how it looked after I finished eating. I always tidy up like this after a meal — you could call it a courtesy to a delicious Tsukemen. I ate every last bit of the sauce. I think people in Korea who like kongguksu might enjoy this too.
Other menu items
This is the Special Tsukemen.
It’s menu No. 13 — a version with extra chashu and toppings. But as I mentioned earlier, Menya Dogen’s core is in the noodles and the sauce, so I’m not particularly fond of the No. 13 Special Tsukemen. Of course, it’s tasty.
And this is tantanmen. Why did I order it? Well… lunch service is until 3 PM, and if you go around 2 PM the tsukemen often sells out. Even around 8 PM it’s frequently sold out. So I had no choice but to try another dish, and the tantanmen was delicious. It’s nicely spicy. They also have a special tsukemen at level 10 that’s extremely hot—if you like spicy food, give it a try. For the record, I managed it.
Wrapping up…
People have different tastes and preferences, so I’m not sure what I should strongly recommend, but personally, while living in Okinawa, the most delicious thing I ate was the tsukemen at Menya Dogen. I hope it suits your palate too. I really, really love this tsukemen. I hope you get to visit and enjoy a delicious meal!
