Mikado Okinawa restaurant: a Naha spot where every dish is good

This is my review of Mikado, an Okinawa restaurant in Naha’s Matsuyama district, 5 minutes on foot from Kokusai-dori. From katsudon and tofu, beef and garlic stir-fry to the hire-katsu set meal and soki soba, every dish at this local restaurant is good, and I’ve put together the menu, the prices (as of August 2025) and how to pay.

👋 Haisai! I’m CULT.
Today I’m talking about a restaurant in Okinawa. No fancy adjectives needed: this is the best restaurant there is, and it has already locked up first place in my Okinawa restaurant top 3. I’ll keep exploring places to eat, but unless I find something truly amazing, Mikado stays at number one.
Anyway, enough chatter, let’s get started 😀

This is the front of the restaurant. Like Kimbap Cheonguk (a cheap Korean snack-bar chain with a huge menu), it serves a wide variety of dishes, and all of it is good. A couple of things aren’t quite my style, but with a menu this big, the cooking is good across the board, and I like that.

The restaurant is on Route 58. The Matsuyama and Kumoji areas have lots of good restaurants, so parking is a bit pricey, and Kokusai-dori is a 2-minute drive or a 5-minute walk away. I think it’s a good stop on your way out after visiting Naminoue Shrine, or if you’re staying near Kokusai-dori, it’s worth a trip over ⏰ It’s open every day from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. (as of August 2025).

The bar counter stands out, and there are tables that seat up to six as well as tables for two to four. Water is self-service, and for cashless payment only PayPay works, so in practice, if you’re visiting from Korea, it’s cash only. When it’s really busy and crowded they ask you to pay up front, so don’t be startled.

First up is the katsudon. It’s 950 yen.
The katsudon comes with a bowl of miso soup, and it’s delicious. I first visited on someone’s recommendation, and I think I picked the right first dish.

The portion of rice is a little big, as usual, though not as much as in convenience-store bento boxes. It’s a really well-made katsudon, so it’s delicious. Recommended

Juicy tonkatsu and moist rice.

The miso soup is, well.. nothing special. It feels like the kind I’d have in Korea, with a few more things in it.

That was delicious! If you like katsudon, this one should suit you too!

Next is the tofu, beef and garlic stir-fry. It’s 900 yen.
With the katsudon, I thought, hmm.. the food here is good. After trying this, I thought.. the food here is really good! Highly recommended.
It’s an easy dish for anyone to enjoy. I reckon it’ll appeal to people of all ages, whatever their gender.

It’s a beef stir-fry with a soy sauce base, and it’s incredibly good. I think it’s a really solid choice for a full meal. Highly recommended

This was among the best things I ate. Excellent, thumbs up

Next is the hire-katsu set meal. It’s 1,050 yen
It’s a pork tenderloin cutlet, and this one is pretty good too. The portion is a little small, though. Kids will love the taste, no question

It’s nice that the sauce is already on it, so you don’t have to bother deciding how much to add.
I love restaurants like this. That tonkatsu is delicious, so I recommend this one too!

The sesame dressing is sweet and delicious. Japanese cabbage is tender, just like the cabbage in southern Europe, so it’s easy to eat.

Tenderloin inside!
Maybe it’s because I’m writing this before lunchtime, but I keep wanting to eat this tonkatsu again

Next is the soki soba. It’s 950 yen
It’s one kind of Okinawa soba, and this place is really good at Okinawa soba too. It’s as good as any shop that specializes only in Okinawa soba. Soki is the Okinawan word for pork ribs, and this is a soba topped with two or three pieces of melt-in-your-mouth ribs.

Those are the ribs and the fish cake. The ribs are so tender that the bone comes cleanly away from the meat. And the fish cake is.. fish cake!

The noodles are in the local Okinawan style.
Which means.. they have the undercooked texture of the noodles in Nongshim Tuigim Udon (Korean instant cup noodles, the big-bowl size), which older people don’t like. It’s delicious and I recommend it, but it will definitely split opinion among older folks, who will either love it or hate it. Okinawa soba in particular is something older people tend to dislike.

I polished this one off too. This place makes really good Okinawa soba as well 👍

Next is the katsu curry. It’s 950 yen
It’s tonkatsu and curry together. It’s less an Okinawan dish than a really common, everyday Japanese one, you know? This one is.. delicious too.

The katsu curry here is really good too.
I recommend it for when you can’t be bothered to pick from the menu.. when you just want to eat something without thinking and still have it taste good.

Of course, I ate it all and enjoyed it a lot.

Champon? Jjamppong? Every time I read the name it reminds me of the jjamppong from a Chinese restaurant in Korea, but it’s different. It’s 900 yen
The person next to me was eating this with such obvious enjoyment that I asked for it too and ordered it.

Well.. this one isn’t my style. It’s not the kind of flavor I like.
How to put it.. it feels like I keep eating fresh leaves in the middle of a meal? Not a salad or anything, more like thick tea leaves? Anyway, it felt like eating leaves, and that wasn’t great for me. The first dish at Mikado that I didn’t like

Next is the jimami. It’s 400 yen.
Tofu is usually made from soybeans, right? In Okinawa, they make it with peanuts. So it’s sweet. It’s an Okinawan dessert. It’s pricier than regular tofu, and I know why because I’ve made it myself: it has to simmer for a long time over a gas flame, so it uses a lot of gas. It’s tasty with soy sauce.

If you’re in Okinawa, I recommend trying this traditional dish.

Next are the goya champuru for 900 yen and the Okinawa soba for 800 yen.
Goya champuru is a traditional Okinawan dish of stir-fried bitter melon with a bitter taste, and the Okinawa soba is a different soba from the soki soba I mentioned earlier. It’s a slightly cheaper version, with pork belly instead of ribs.

It’s made by stir-frying goya, that bitter melon people eat a lot in Okinawa, with egg, Spam and so on.
Like Korea, Okinawa went through dirt-poor lean years after the Pacific War, and because US troops were stationed there, Spam was treated as a luxury food. That’s why Spam is so easy to find in supermarkets.

Goya is a very bitter ingredient. But people who like it really love it. I happen to like it. It’s the perfect drinking snack and disappears in no time. If you don’t like bitter things, though, I don’t really recommend it.

Next is the Okinawa soba. It’s close to the standard style served at Okinawa soba shops.
It has pork belly rafute in it, and as I mentioned.. older people.. usually don’t like it.

Of course, I really enjoyed this one too. I like Okinawa soba with noodles boiled long until they’re soft, but I like local-style Okinawa soba like this as well.

So, what did you think? Today I told you about Mikado, which I recommend you visit if you come to Okinawa. It’s also the kind of place where, if you booked a place to stay nearby and spent a few days there, I think it would make for a really happy Okinawa work trip.

To sum up, the two I’d say you must try are the tofu, beef and garlic stir-fry and the hire-katsu set meal.

That’s it for today! Mata yasai 👋