There’s a very distinctive ramen joint in Kyoto called Menbakaichidai that serves what they call “fire ramen.” It’s essentially ramen flambé — they finish your bowl of ramen with a small inferno of burning oil that goes up in a spectacular burst of flames.
There are over 1600 temples and 400 shrines in Kyoto, which is readily apparent when you’re walking around the city. It’s hard to walk more than a few blocks without stumbling onto a temple or a shrine, and when you’re on the outskirts of the city, they’re absolutely everywhere.
If heaven exists, it probably looks something like the Nishiki Market in Kyoto: a seemingly endless street market filled with one vendor after another serving up delicious-looking food.
I was wondering if the food in Kyoto could possibly live up to the non-stop greatness of Tokyo; well, my first meal in the city– an insanely delicious bowl of udon noodles — was here to pat me on the head and let me know that everything was going to be okay.
The bus going from the Jigokudani Monkey Park to Nagano station isn’t super frequent, so after getting my fill of monkey business, I had a little bit of time to kill.
Enter: Enza Cafe, a small restaurant that specializes in ramen near the beginning of the monkey trail.
There’s a place near Nagano called Jigokudani Monkey Park, and it gives you exactly what you’re hoping for. So many monkeys.
Curry isn’t necessarily the first thing that comes to mind when you think about Japanese food, but yeah, they love it here. And if a hole-in-the-wall joint called Kitchen Nankai is any indication, that love is very much justified. Like pretty much all of the food I’ve had in Tokyo, it’s good.
Yeah, I know, yet another Tokyo park post. But this is the nicest one yet, so I think you’ll just have to put up with one more.
Remember that old SNL sketch from the ’90s where Chris Kattan played Antonio Banderas as the host of a talk show? And every time he tried to unbutton his shirt, the members of his band would plead with him to stop, because he was too sexy? Well that’s how I feel about Tokyo at this point. It needs to stop, because it’s clearly too sexy.
Want an amazing view of Tokyo? You could go up the Tokyo Tower and spend a whopping 1600 yen (!), or you could visit the Tokyo Skytree, which costs as much as 3090 yen (!!!) to go all the way to the top.
Or! Go to Tokyo City Hall, spend a grand total of zero dollars, and get an absolutely magnificent view of the city.