Hotokura Funari Kawaguchiko — Restaurant in Fujikawaguchiko

After visiting Arakura Fuji Sengen Jinja Shrine, drive a short distance to here for dinner. Learn that this is a famous place, local artist use to come and dine. Many signed testimonies are hang near the place where shoes are removed before entering dining area. The dining area is made from long benches on both side and it sloping up on the ground level. The top level dining is level floor and no slope. They serve authentic hand made noodles serve in special broth. Choice of chicken, pork or beef base broth. It taste like our Malaysian pan mee except this shop broth is saltier as most Japanese food is salty. Plenty of meat and vegetable comes in a big pot with cover. We came in end Feb so it is very cold outside and the food is tasty warm inside the shop. Highly recommend to try if you happen to come to the shrine to view the manificient view of Mt Fuji at its nearest. Take note there is no guarantee as it can be block by thick fog when weather is cold. Also it can get very dark at 5pm and photo is only via very expensive and latest camera phone. Plenty of parking. As per their culture talking loudly...

Got a ticket at 3pm and seated at 5:30pm. This place is the exception to Japan being known for efficiency. This restaurant loses so much money because of how slow they move and no urgency to clean tables to get the next group seated. We wondered if they were short staffed the entire time because of how slow it was ran. It's the quietest popular restaurant we've been to because hardly anyone is seated. It seemed like half the restaurant had open tables that were either clean and ready to go or had dishes from the previous group that left 10 mins before then. Also, the tables are quite large and could easily fit 6 people comfortably but so many had two people. Why not put up a partition so you can at least put two more people at the table and double your money? Menu was sort of limited which was fine. I appreciate sticking to what you are known for but hoto was okay. Nothing that made me want to come back. We tried Kosaka the night before and the food/experience was significantly better. Not to mention they feed ten times as many people in an hour because they run their restaurant way more...

Most people try Hōtō (餺飥麵, ほうとう) which is a noodle soup and popular regional dish originating from Yamanashi, made by stewing flat udon noodles and vegetables in miso soup during the visit of Kawaguchiko.

Houtou Fudou which is located near Kawaguchiko station might be the most popular one but we preferred Houtoukura Funari Kawaguchiko. It’s far from the train station and need to get there either by bus or driving yourself but it’s worth a visit.

Houtoukura Funari was recognized as the best Hōtō around Fuji Mt. area for years and the views from the restaurant is astonishingly beautiful.

The choice on the menu was limited but everything was delicious. We only ordered one bowl of Hōtō with pork & veggies and 2 sides: braised chicken liver, pork intestine. The portion of Hōtō was more than enough to share by two of us and it was pretty decent, the noodles was chewy, the soup was sweet and light. Their sides, just FYI we love dishes of edible visceral, were also great.

Overall, we highly recommend people who visit Kawaguchiko to try your Hōtō here if...