Ramen recommendation: Menya Darumaya

👋 Haisai! This is CULT.
Today I’m writing about an Okinawa favorite, continuing from last time: Menya Darumaya (麺屋だるま家 沖縄店). Okinawa has many ramen shops, but I can confidently say that Menya Darumaya is the most delicious among them. It’s one of the ramen shops you must visit when traveling to Okinawa, and it’s not far from the airport, so please visit before you pick up or return your rental car.

Location of Menya Darumaya

To add a little to what I wrote last time, this place doesn’t only have parking for three cars; if you go behind the building you can park about ten more cars. So if you’re planning to visit, just pin this and come. [Google Maps]

As this place is popular, write your name down first when you go in. You should write your name and how many people are in your party. Nine times out of ten the customers are people who work nearby or locals, so table turnover is very quick. Waiting times usually shorten quickly, so don’t worry.

Today I’m going to try the spicy Daruma ramen.

The price is 1,300 yen, about the same as Danbo Ramen. I don’t think Danbo Ramen is worth standing in line that long for, so I prefer this place.

You can choose a spice level from 1 to 30. I have to write this post not only for Koreans but also for English-speaking and Taiwanese readers, so I can’t go straight to max level from the start. If I were only posting on my Naver blog like before, I’d just jump right to the max, but English-speaking readers didn’t seem to like that…
Next time I’ll try level 30 and post about it again.
For today, I’m going with level 5, which is described as intensely spicy, hotter than you can imagine. I wonder how hot it really is?

And you can have as much of the side dishes as you need. Both are part of the dietary-fiber series: the one on the right is pickles, and the one on the left is mustard-leaf pickles commonly found at ramen shops. They’re just greens, but they’re tasty.

🍜 Spicy Daruma Ramen

The broth is red. I’m already looking forward to how spicy it will be.
By the way, I really like Menya Darumaya because it has lots of meat toppings. This is my second-favorite ramen spot in Okinawa.

I’ll give it my approval,
I really like that there are four or five pieces like this. Since this is a high-priced ramen, they should at least provide this much.

With the regular Daruma ramen they asked me to choose the noodle thickness, but with the spicy Daruma ramen they only asked me to choose the spice level. By the way, none of the staff spoke English.

As for the level 5 spicy broth… hmm… it’s salty. It was fine when I was eating it with the meat and noodles, but when I tried drinking the broth on its own, it was salty.

I gave up on the broth because it was too salty. But the ramen itself was delicious.
Level 5 spicy… hmm… I think Shin Ramyun is spicier? Still, it was a mild kick that was easy to enjoy. For Koreans it’s just a tasty level of heat… but Europeans would probably make a big fuss about how spicy it is. So next time I visit, I’ll try level 30.
I’ll keep it short today, and I’ll be back tomorrow with more Okinawa travel information. Matayasai 👋