Popular ramen restaurant “Mankind Minna Noodles” x Sake pairing! Tenmei,” which opened on May 1, seemed to have been a hit during the GW period, with lines of 20 to 30 people standing in line throughout May 4 and 6, when the author actually visited the restaurant. The fact that “Mankind’s All Noodles,” a restaurant where lines are inevitable at every location, has taken on the challenge of a new business model has been talked about even before the opening, and it seems to have brought dramatic energy to the previously deserted Time Out Market for quite some time. Let’s place an order right away. The most distinctive feature of Tenmei is the “sake + ramen” experiment, which was created in collaboration with Keita Akahoshi, a “sake sommelier” known as a leading authority on sake pairings. There are four types of ramen available: CLEAR (bonito + soy sauce), RICH (scallop + light soy sauce), DARK (garlic + dark soy sauce), and LIGHT (scallop + foamy soy sauce). You can order ramen by itself, but for the pairing set, three types of sake are poured into small glasses, and you drink them in the specified order while eating your ramen. The sake pairings with the ramen “rich” set I ordered are as follows. All were from the Ayagiku lineup, a locally brewed sake produced in Kagawa Prefecture. First bottle: Ayagiku Sanuki Olive 11 Junmai
Second bottle: Ayagiku Junmai
Third bottle: Ayagiku Yuzu While tasting the creamy scallop-flavored soup, drink the Sanuki Olive, which has a light and gorgeous olive flavor, and the soft flavors will first nestle together. Then, if you drink the “Junmai,” which has the flavor of “Oceto” from Kagawa Prefecture, it will add a much stronger and crisp flavor to the ramen, and the ramen will taste more powerful. The ramen is then finished off with yuzu (citron) sake, a specialty of Ayataka, a company that specializes in liqueurs. By tasting the three types of sake together with ramen, which had previously been enjoyed separately, one gets the impression of a story with a “beginning and end” that can be enjoyed with great depth. The other sets are also paired with local sake from such breweries as Fukui Prefecture’s Ippongi Kuboten and Shimane Prefecture’s Chiyomusubi Sake Brewery. Of course, the ramen and chashu-don alone are satisfying enough, but we would like to taste all the different kinds of sake that Mr. Akahoshi has paired with his ramen.
Expo’s “That British Restaurant” opens a restaurant! The British restaurant “FURAI GUYS,” which opened on May 8, is said to be run by “Living Hospitality,” which operated the restaurant in the “Expo British Pavilion” (British Pavilion) at the Osaka-Kansai Expo held in 2025. Visitors can enjoy British dishes such as fish and chips, which were served at the Expo site, without having to wait for an hour or two, as was the case at the time of the Expo. The happiness of being able to enjoy crispy fried white fish and large potatoes with dips such as green peas, while they are still crunchy! Also worth tasting is the “piccalilli” (pickles), which are vegetables such as cauliflower marinated in vinegar with a strong touch of turmeric and mustard. Not only is it served on the restaurant’s menu in combination with scotch eggs and other dishes, but they are also preparing to sell it in jars in the future. What this FURAI GUYS is expected to do is “attract Expo Gourmet fans. People who frequented the restaurants and food court during the Expo are now asking for the same food again. As the Expo draws to a close, more and more people are recalling the menus of those days, saying, “I want to eat there again! Now in Kansai, food events featuring restaurants from that era are being held one after another, and the response seems to be overwhelmingly positive across the board. Many of the FURAI GUYS seem to be people who worked at the restaurants back then, and some of them are wearing the entrance passes of those who were involved in the restaurants back then. From the first day of the Expo, there was a steady stream of Expo freaks who heard about the opening, and I was impressed by the high frequency of “The restaurant in the British Pavilion is back! It was impressive to see how frequently the word “British Pavilion restaurant is back! The Thai Pavilion’s restaurant, “Kung Thep,” will also be opening on June 8. It will be interesting to see if another Expo Gourmet restaurant will move in as a tenant to save the time-out market, which has been suffering from sluggish customer traffic.
© Source travel watch