Marukame Udon – Downtown, HI

Yay! I got to try the downtown location the other week. For my review of the Waikiki location, click here. I grabbed takeout since I wasn’t staying long and wow! Their takeout is so nice! Although I did wonder how it would work if you wanted to grab tempura. I didn’t see takeout boxes for that so I didn’t grab any. Their bags for takeout are high quality handle bags! Fancy stuff. This time, I tried their special Garlic Chicken Udon Salad.

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Udon machine ready to make some fresh noodles

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Worker bees working hard to crank the orders out!

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Delicious Garlic Chicken Udon Salad!

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Since the dish is cold, the noodles are very firm which I like. The dressing works perfectly with this dish too! Give it a try!

Marukame Udon – Waikiki, HI

Happy soggy Sunday everyone! What a weekend forecast, did you folks get the text message earlier today? I was freaked out at first because it was the first one I ever received from emergency alerts, I thought it was great though! Hope you are all doing well. We had a bit of craziness at work due to the power outage but everything was back to normal just in time to go to work on Friday.

The famed Marukame Udon! They have been open for quite a while and haven’t slowed since day one. They have even opened a location in downtown. So two great locations with awesome parking options. That was dripping in sarcasm wasn’t it?  I took the trek out to Waikiki recently to give them a try! I parked at Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center and walked over. It was a short but hot walk…and the place does not have air conditioning! I came back and went to the food court to buy something to get validation for the parking. Here’s a tip for you, you have to spend at least $10 to get the validation. Here’s a second tip, everyone in the food court has terrible customer service. When I went to pay for my parking ticket, it would have cost $10 for parking so it’s good I got something in exchange. Anyway, a real quick update today! I had an…interesting experience.

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140525-02Regular Ontama Udon – Cold

The noodles were pretty good. Actually they were very firm which I don’t mind at all. The cold noodles hit the spot on this hot day. I thought their udon and sauce was good, but nothing I need to return quickly for. Their seats are always filled but the way this place works, someone is always leaving as you are ready to sit and eat!

140525-03Fish Cake Tempura and Shrimp Tempura

Here’s my funny story about this visit. Well you get in line, you let the cook know which style udon you want. They prepare it up really quick and hand it over to you, you then walk over to the hot tempura bar and musubi bar before you hit the cashier. The tempura are all set out with tongs ready to be selected. I wasn’t really paying attention to everyone ahead of me so as I reach the musubi bar, I start to grab my own musubi by hand. I got a stern scolding from the lady behind the bar about having to use the tongs. The tongs were tucked away on the side…for you to grab your individually wrapped musubi. Yes, I was trying to grab for my own plastic wrapped musubi and was told to use tongs. It was a bit ridiculous if you ask me – isn’t that what the plastic wrap is for? I didn’t take pictures of the musubi but the salmon onigiri was not great. The salmon was incredibly salty which overpowered the whole musubi…or was it cause I was salty from the experience? Hehe, in any case…I’m glad I got to try this place but I am definitely not itching to return soon.

Typical Breakfast – Shinjuku, Japan

I had two issues in Japan. One, I woke up every morning feeling super dizzy. It lasted all day and I don’t know what it was. I carried my dramamine with me to try to control it but it didn’t work too well. Second, there wasn’t enough time or room in my stomach to eat everything in Japan. The second one is what made me most sad, lol. For breakfast, we weren’t always in the mood for breakfast but ate some anyway! Precious eating time! What we ended up doing was going to small little shops that had computer vending machines taking your orders. Those are the best places. Put your order in, seat yourself, food is delivered, devour and then leave. We need that here.

140125-01My breakfast! A curry and udon set.

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Linda had the wakame udon. She wanted to clean her system out from all the eating!

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140125-06Best eggs are in Japan. Please tell me I’m wrong and if you do, you must tell me where the best eggs are.

The food is great. These restaurants are probably thought of as low quality fast food which to me was like high quality for Hawaii! It was so good. We were one of the few diners this particular morning. We were joined by a drunk girl in the corner, passed out in her bowl of noodles. Yes. In. Her. Bowl. The workers don’t do much of anything – I assume they see a lot of people who come in to pass out after drinking…haha!