Dinner at Namishibuki in Utoro

26 August 2023

Having learnt a lesson from the day before, we knew that there are few options for dinner at Utoro and the restaurants are typically fully booked if you go late. So it is good idea to make reservations (which we could not do since we don’t speak Japanese) or be the first few walk-in customers at the restaurant when it opens for dinner.

We had done some research the day before and selected Namishibuki as our place for dinner on the second night of our stay in Utoro.

Namishibuki is a ramen restaurant next to the sea and there is a large kanji word  “mian” or noodles at the wall of the restaurant. This popular restaurant opens at 5.30 PM and there were already a few people in the queue when we arrived at about 5.20 PM.  Parking at the side of the restaurant was free, although limited to about six cars.

There are benches for walk-in customers queuing outside the Namishibuki restaurant.

Once opened, we were seated in a room with 2 low Japanese style dining tables. The table next to window was reserved by a Japanese couple. Even then I could get a glimpse of the setting sun. 

View of the setting sun from inside the restaurant.

Ordering of the food is through a tablet that has multi-lingual functions. There are three types of ramen in the menu - miso, shio (salt), and soy sauce. All are made with a pork bone base. We could order the ramen with various options of toppings like onsen egg, additional meat, and garnishing.

Besides ramen, there are yakitori and other side dishes. For drinks, we tried the Calpis which is a Japanese non-carbonated soft drink with slightly acidic flavour.

These are the items we ordered.

The potatoes croquettes with butter on top are delicious. Highly recommended appetisers.

Char Siu Shio (salt) Ramen for me and my wife. With only salt used in seasoning, the Shio ramen best represents the original taste of the broth. The broth comes in a light whitish color.

The spicy miso ramen for my son who loves spicy food.

Pork and Chicken yakitori were perfectly cooked, tender and juicy.

Happy and satisfied with our dinner on this night.

Overall, we had a very good dinner at the Namishibuki. It was definitely better than the dinner we had on our first night in Utoro.

There was still some blue light of dusk when we left the restaurant at 6.30 PM. I saw some interesting cloud formations that looked like flying saucers. These are called lenticular clouds.

Did you spot the 2 flying saucers (UFO)?