Despite Japan being a monoethnic nation, the presence of a number of large ports scattered throughout the mainland has resulted in the birth of a number of cultures and cuisines that are uniquely associated with Japan. Yokohama, a city located just south of the capital Tokyo, is one of these major port cities, and is recognised as a major economic, cultural, and commercial hub, and is home to some international locations of interest, including the largest Chinatown in Japan.

It is no surprise that, with Yokohama being just a half hour train ride from Central Tokyo, it is a hotspot for tourists to visit for a day trip from the main city. With that, here are some of the places to visit for an international experience in Yokohama.

!!! Cup Noodles Museum

A visit to the Nissin Cup Ramen Museum is a total no-brainer for many people, especially if one of the many reasons people visit Japan is because of their absolutely delicious instant and cup ramen! In fact, surveys conducted in Japan consistently show that respondents believed instant ramen to be the nation’s greatest invention, outdoing some incredible technological innovations such as karaoke machines and video games. That’s no surprise – instant noodles require multiple processes to capture the experience of slurping down the salty, savoury goodness of a piping hot bowl of noodle soup into a highly shelf-stable product that’s easy to transport and prepare, for an exceptionally affordable price. And the brainchild behind this ingenious foodstuff is Momofuku Ando, the founder of the globally-recognised food company, Nissin Foods.

There are two other Cup Noodle Museums in the world, one located in Osaka and one in Hong Kong. Each of these have slightly different exhibits and activities available, so one can visit all three locations and get different experiences out of them. For the most part, all three feature exhibits that outline the history of how Momofuku Ando came to create the beloved instant cup noodle, and a look into how the brand has expanded since. Many of these experiences are interactive and stunning to look at – more like an art gallery than a museum – and while much of the information is in Japanese, there are guides in English and other languages to make the experience enjoyable for everyone.

Admission and Entry

The Yokohama Cup Noodles Museum is located just a few minutes’ walk from the Minatomirai Station or the Sakuragicho JR Station. It opens from 10am and closes at 6pm (last entry 5pm) and closes on Tuesdays and public holidays. Tickets are ¥500 (US$4.40) per person. You can visit their admission page (English) for more information on their closure dates. Tickets can be purchased on the day at the ticket counter.

My CUPNOODLES Factory

One of the workshops that everyone comes for is the chance to create your own cup ramen and customise the packaging yourself. This experience is available in 30 minute slots, which can be chosen at the time of purchasing your admission ticket. This experience was ¥400 (US$3.50) at the time of writing this, and allows you to doodle your own packaging, select one seasoning soup base, and up to four toppings for your instant noodles.

This can mean some pretty funky combos, thanks to topping options such as shrimp, kimchi, cheese, corn, and fishcakes (to name just a few), with an over 5,000 available combinations for people to try. The cups are then sealed and vacuum-packed, with the option of then wrapping your cup in a protective bubble-bag for a hands-free experience for the rest of your day.

Chicken Ramen Factory

The first cup noodle that Momofuku Ando created was a chicken ramen, and which developed into one of Nissin’s iconic products. In this workshop, which costs ¥800 (US$7.00) per person, you can learn to make noodles by hand and then fry it, resulting in the familiar cake of dehydrated noodles we know today. This 90-minute session is by reservation only, so make sure to book ahead of time to avoid disappointment. We didn’t do this activity, but it is popular amongst children, with the cooking processes completed by the trained staff.

Noodles Bazaar

On the fourth floor of the Museum is the noodles bazaar, a food court decked out to mimic the Asian establishments that serve street food at rapid paces for a handful of spare change. Eight stands from around the world offer a variety of noodle dishes from Asia (and one from Italy) at a very affordable ¥400 (US$3.50) per portion. We had lunch lined up for later in the day but couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try cup noodle-flavoured soft serve ice cream (¥400; US$3.50), which had a soy sauce-flavoured soft serve and topped with freeze-dried pieces of egg, spring onion, charsiu pork, and shrimp. It’s interesting, to say the least – the sweetness is perhaps a little too much for how savoury the rest of the ingredients are, but the seasoning is so mild that it doesn’t taste like too much if you don’t think too much about it. Certainly worth a try!

YOKOHAMA World Porters

Located just across the road from the Yokohama Cup Noodles Museum, YOKOHAMA World Porters is a mall with a variety of retail stores, facilities, and dining options, though it’s also a collection of Hawaiian establishments for your own little taste of Hawaii in Japan! Some famous shops include Leonard’s, which sells doughnut-like treats called malasadas, Hawaiian Host macadamia chocolates, and Blue Seal ice cream, as well as clothing and jewellery stores. World Porters is also home to Sweets Cranes, a crane machine for cake and other desserts. If you’ve got a couple of hours free, World Porters is definitely the place for something new.

Chinatown

As mentioned before, Yokohama’s Chinatown is the biggest in Japan, and one of the largest in the world. It’s about a twenty minute walk from the Cup Ramen Museum, or closest to the Motomachi-Chūkagai Station or the Ishikawachō JR Station. With the area becoming a large tourist destination, the Chinese population living in the area is not very large, but it remains home to over 250 Chinese-owned or Chinese-themed establishments, which keeps the spirit of Chinatown alive. With the area being a popular attraction for international and even Japanese tourists, it is inevitable that there are plenty of things to do, eat, and buy in the area. You won’t be hard-pressed to find a sit-down restaurant or Chinese street food to satiate your hunger, and there are countless souvenir stores ranging from cheaper trinkets to high-quality goods for every budget and to suit any need. Despite much of the Chinese population hailing from the Canton area of China, you can still find establishments featuring cuisines from different regions of the Chinese mainland, but there are also plenty of eateries with Taiwanese food.

KouMen紅棉

KouMen is a bakery and pastry shop in Chinatown that is most famously known for its daan taat egg tarts (蛋達) at ¥160 (US$1.40) at the time of our visit. This dish is based off the Portuguese pastel de nata and English custard tarts, and consists of an egg custard baked inside a pastry shell. Egg tarts are popular in Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Macau, and are often seen in dim sum or yum cha restaurants. While the pasty can either be flaky or shortcrust, KouMen’s version opts for the flaky style, delicately light and tender, with an exceptionally smooth and perfectly sweetened, flavourful custard.

A combination of a good pastry and a good custard is hard to come by, but KouMen nails it perfectly. If you love your egg tarts, this is definitely a place to pay a visit. Also popular are their coconut tarts, mooncakes, steamed meat buns, and almond jelly.

HouTenKaku (鵬天閣)

Another famous establishment in the Chinatown area is HouTenKaku, because of what we first presumed to be prime real estate on the corner of the Chinatown Main Street and Shanghai Road. This huge shopfront had a huge window with a view into the kitchen where a number of chefs were folding dumplings by hand, and the subsequent queue for a taste was out the door. While HouTenKaku is normally a restaurant with multiple branches within the Chinatown area alone, many people on the main street stop for its Shanghainese-style soup dumplings called xiaolongbao (小籠包; XLB).

Compared to the Taiwanese style, which consists a thin, wrapper-based skin dumpling with a pork meat filling and aspic that melts into a juicy soup when the dumplings are cooked, the original Shanghainese style soup dumplings are made with a thicker skin due to it being pressed rather than rolled like dumpling skins. In the case of HouTenKaku, the soup dumplings are more similar to the equally delicious but lesser-known shengjianbao (生煎包; SJB), which are pan-fried on a hot griddle and steamed to achieve a crispy bottom.

Convinced by the unending crowd, we stopped for the 4-piece bi-coloured fried soup dumplings (生二色焼き小籠包) which consists of 2 pieces of each of the pork dumpling (white) and the pork and prawn dumpling (green) at ¥660 (US$5.80) during our time of visit. True to Shanghainese style, which sees the dumplings being dipped in black vinegar before eating (as compared to the Taiwanese style of biting a hole in the skin and adding vinegar), we enjoyed the crispy, hot, juicy dumplings in true street food style – crouched over the box on the side of the road, sharing a pair of disposable chopsticks and burning our tongues from the scorching soup. It’s perfectly seasoned, tender, crispy, and hits all the right spots. We highly recommend it.

EdoSei 江戸清

Along the main road running through Chinatown, our attention was once again caught by the sight of EdoSei, a takeaway eatery specialising in steamed buns. They offer a variety of fillings such as chilli shrimp, barbecue pork, and black sesame, to name a few, but they are most well-known for their giant pork steamed buns at ¥500 (US$4.40) a piece. It is pretty expensive but considering its heft it is fairly cost-effective – at least, it would have been if it had been nicer to eat. While the bun itself was surprisingly fluffy and not soggy as one can become sitting in a steamer with juicy meat, the filling was bland and consisted mostly of chopped cabbage, resulting in a lack of savouriness that one craves in a pork bun. While there is ample carbohydrate, protein, and fibre for a cheap and filling meal, it’s not one of the things we think is a must-try in Chinatown.

Baby Star Factory – 2^nd floor of Hakurankan 博覧館

In the general Chinatown area there are plenty of gift and souvenir stores, including specialty stores that feature products that are difficult to find in Japan. Hakurankan is one of these stores, and was of particular interest to us because of the Baby Star Factory Store located on the second floor. Baby Star is a popular snack in Japan, basically crispy dried noodles that have a range of different flavours.

If you’re a fan of Baby Star or Japanese snacks in general, this is a great place to pop in for a visit to find unique flavours such as takoyaki octopus fritters, chocolate, and lobster, or even collaborations with companies such as CoCo Curry. Hakurankan is only one of many places for unique souvenirs that are sure to please friends and family, but it is the only location of the Baby Star Factory store in Japan.

Ramen

Ramen outside of Japan is often considered as Japanese food, whereas many Japanese people see it as Chinese cuisine. It is derived from Chinese hand-pulled noodles lāmiàn (拉麵) before a lot of modifications gradually saw it evolve into the dish that many of us would recognise today. It is no surprise that ramen is easy to find in the Chinatown area, in not only the Japanese style but also the more traditional Chinese versions depending on the restaurant you visit. Throughout Japan we ate a few ramen restaurants because it’s delicious and makes for affordable meals on a budget. While we love the thick, fatty, salty Hakata-style broth, we also made it a point to try out different variations of ramen, and there are plenty if you know where to look. Yokohama was no exception, and we chanced across an interesting little restaurant about ten minutes’ walk from the central Chinatown area that we were keen to try out.

Shigure 時雨

Shigure prides itself on chuuka soba (中華蕎麦; Chinese noodles), which are another common name for ramen noodles. Like many ramen shops, orders are placed by purchasing a ticket from the machine at the door. We opted to try their original chuukasoba (¥880 or US$7.75 at our time of visit) as well as their spicy green chilli tsukemen dipping noodles (青唐辛子酸辛キジつけ麺; ¥950; US$8.40). We were given the option to have less noodles with the tsukemen in exchange for an extra egg, which we took.

Shigure’s noodles are very straight, and despite the broth being dark from the soy sauce and transparent it was surprisingly rich, savoury and salty from the pork, pungent bamboo shoots, and the soy sauce, a delicious change from the greasy, garlicky, white ramen broths we mostly see overseas. The tsukemen dipping noodles were also very different to other ones we’d had, which are normally thickened, reduced versions of the normal fatty pork broths making for a very rich meal. In the case of Shigure’s tsukemen, the broth is almost the same concentration as the normal soup noodles, though it’s spruced up with vinegar, plenty of spring onions, and green chillis. The acidity and heat cuts through the richness of the broth, making for a very refreshing and light meal, a huge change to that of the greasy pork broth we know and love. If you’re looking for a unique ramen style, Shigure is a great place for a visit.

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