Medetaiya — Restaurant in Aizuwakamatsu

This place is supposed to specialize in sauce katsu and kitakama ramen, so to try both, I ordered the set. The katsudon is supposed to be a mini Don but it was a full meal for me. I like the salty and sweet sauce. The katsu's crust is crispy even when it was drenched in sauce. Underneath the katsu is a bed of cabbage and rice. It comes with mustard and pickles which elevated the dish. While the katsu was nice, I would say the star of the dish was the aizu rice. It was really great quality rice.

The kitakama ramen was just meh for me. I got the shio version and it was a little too oily for me. The menma or bamboo shoots was nice. The 3 pieces of chashu were tender and flavorful as well. The noodles are a bit wider and curly and had an Al dente texture. Overall a solid ramen, but I think I still prefer the Hakata style...

Is not a foreigner friendly place. I visited with my husband and son, we ordered from a tablet, all in Japanese. The waitress showed up with four ramen cups, it seemed instead of ordering a topping we ordered and extra cup. We explained that we just wanted 3, she said she could take but said you have to pay for everything. We understood that but we were expecting the person in charge to come and ask about the problem, nobody showed up… well if at least the ramen was good, but it was so greasy we all ended up with stomach aches. Not tissues on the table, not napkins…There’s way better options in Aizu for ramen. The shop is next to my place but I’m not coming back and definitely not recommending it, I felt discriminated, I wonder what would have happened if I...

This is a famous place, but the ramen isn’t that good. Too greasy to my taste. Furthermore, the gyozas were almost raw inside. These are all details that can be just my ignorance in ramen. The real issue is that this place is really unfriendly to foreigners. After ordering by mistake an extra dish (we confused it with a topping in their only Japanese electronic menu) they refused to cancel that extra dish and asked us to pay it. I guess that’s their prerogative, like mine is never...