TICKET RAMEN - A "ticket" restaurant is where you order your food from a vending machine. The food does not actually come from a vending machine…Here's how it works: You enter the restaurant, check out the menu on the wall, put your money into the vending machine, push the food button you want to order, give your ticket to the server, sit down, and wait for your order! We went to our first ticket restaurant with one of our good friends, Eddie, who also received ordered to Okinawa and was actually on our same flight! The place is called Ramen Kagetsu Arashi.
The vending machine
Placing our order...
Our order! I ordered a ramen where the noodles and soup come separately. The second picture is after I poured the soup into the noodle bowl. Yum! Mike ordered a miso-based ramen. Eddie was super hungry - he ordered a tomato-base ramen and a spicy rice dish. Delicious :)
BLUE SEAL ICE CREAM - After our ramen ticket dinner, we went to a Blue Seal ice cream shop. There are many locations of these ice cream shops in Okinawa, kind of like many of the Cold Stone-type ice cream shops in the states. I think they are so popular because of the very hot weather in the summer and ice cream always sounds like a good idea! They also run specials on the 10th and 20th of every month - buy one scoop and get two mini scoops for free! Anyways, they have tons of flavors and some very curious ones to boot. If you know me, then you know that I was extra excited about this…A new flavor and it's ice cream?! Yes, please.
I ended up ordering two scoops, one with Beni-imo and one Okinawan cheesecake. Beni-imo is very popular here in Okinawa and this was my first time trying it. It's a purple sweet potato flavor and it's delicious! They sell Beni-imo (the actual potato) in the markets here but I have yet to try a real one. Haha. The Okinawan cheesecake was a much milder cheesecake flavor than us Americans are used to. In my opinion it was better than our cheesecake ice cream. Eddie and Mike went with a little more "kid" flavors. They both got blue splash, which may have been carbonated because it had a fizzy feeling in your mouth. It tasted like bubblegum. Mike also ordered a Grape Muscat which is really good too and Eddie ordered a mango flavor. I can't wait to try more flavors!!
Purple sweet potato ice cream
Me, Mike, and Eddie enjoying our ice cream cones :)
TEX-MEX - Trust me, we did not set out to eat Tex-Mex in Okinawa, we just ended up here. Haha. The restaurant next door, which we intended to go try, was closed for who knows why. Places here do that- You go to them just to find out their closed, even though their hours say they should be open. Kind of frustrating, but it forces us to be spontaneous! So we ended up at Mike's Tex-Mex, which we eventually wanted to try anyways.
The outside
The inside
The menu was typical - burritos, enchiladas, tacos, etc.
Starter salad - shredded lettuce with salsa and secret recipe dressing
I ordered a burrito and Mike ordered a taco and quesadilla. The food wan't actually that bad. Being from CA I know I'm not going to get delicious Mexican/Tex-Mex in Okinawa, but if you're craving it and don't want to cook your own, then it will do.
SUSHI, again - This time we went to a sushi restaurant located in American Village. It is upstairs from Sega and greatly caters to Americans' palettes. In fact, they advertise that it is all original sushi from Los Angeles, CA. Haha. This is where you will find all the specialty rolls we typically see at a sushi menu in the states - Rainbow roll, Spider crunchy roll, Philadelphia, etc.
Menu displayed on the outside wall
Here's the menu. They also offered tempura and other things besides sushi
Here's our order. We got some typical rolls, nothing out of the ordinary. Normally we can easily eat 4 rolls, but these were huge! Now we know to only order 3 here. I found that the sushi back home is just as good, if not better. Although the fish is fresh here in Okinawa, I was not super impressed with the food. If we are ever craving rolls, however, we will be back :)
Habusake shot = snake venom shot. Notice the dead snake in the jar. Word around town is that this shot will knock you on your a**!! We will probably try it, eventually...
TENKAIPPIN RAMEN - We have driven past this restaurant several times and finally decided to stop here for lunch one day. It is a typical ramen restaurant - not very big and designed to get you in and out quickly.
The outside
The inside
Our order! We both got combos - you pick your type of ramen, your rice, and your side. Mike got the thicker broth in his ramen, which was more delicious than my miso-based ramen. He ordered crispy chicken and I ordered spicy shrimp. Both of those were good.
MYSTERY RESTAURANT - This is another restaurant that we have driven past a few times. So…we popped in for dinner one night. I don't know the name - I now call it "place of fried foods" and in Okinawa "fried" means tempura battered. Their menu consisted of combo sets and the English menu was not very clear. Also, the server dod not speak English very well so we ended up doing a lot of pointing ;) Mike and I picked the same combo meal with a few different options. I went with the tempura shrimp with almond jelly for dessert and he went with the tempura fried pork cutlet and Okinawan brown sugar dessert.
The outside
The inside
The menu
Cabbage salad starter. Had a strong vinegar taste.
The food came in these cute containers!
This ended up being one of my favorite places! The shrimp tempura was perfectly done, served over a bed of white rice, and some sauce that was delicious. It came with a salad (shredded lettuce), squid ink soba noodles, and a vinegar-based green bean-like vegetable. Mike's was also very good. We will be back for more "fried" food!
Obviously there are tons of other restaurants that we have still have to try all around Okinawa. These ones are close to home and on the major streets we drive daily. I will keep you updated on the wonderful places we find :)
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