Mentouan — Restaurant in Nara

Very cute and small restaurant right next to the very popular mochi store. You have to write your name on the waiting list! It was a very long list and the restaurant store hours closes at 3:00pm. We thought we weren’t going to make it cause it be past 3pm the moment it is my time. But actually after 3pm, they go through the whole list and check who is still there. They make sure to serve everyone at that point. Which is super nice of them! They call your name out so you need to be near the restaurant!

Food: we got the fried egg bag with udon inside! The broth was very clear and cozy feeling. The udon itself was so soft and fresh! It’s probably the softest udon I ever had. It was around 1,100 yen and it is cash only!

Service: they serve cold water and leaves a pitcher of cold water. The menu is on the side of the table with large photos. They have one toilet here and a fish tank inside!

Overall: if you are willing to wait here then totally worth it! Food was delicious and just a note that it...

Delicious. Great prices. Nice and helpful staff. English and Chinese menus.

Wow I enjoyed this place.

The food was delicious. It had a good variety of noodles with different kinds of flavor. Their Sashimi was great I wish I had more with my meal. Nothing was overwhelming. A good soft balance of flavor.

I think I'm used to the more expensive restaurants around Japan where everything is around 1000~円. This place had I think 95% under that so I felt that they were all great prices. This could be my own bias, so if you feel this is please ignore.

It seems as if the staff own the restaurant and they were all kind and helpful. Great service. I recommend you speak a little bit of Japanese if you are to go here. The menus were descriptive which I don't see as common here.

I greatly enjoyed this place and would like...

I found this place on Instagram and was hoping it wasn't a gimmick and after waiting almost two hours to sit down we discovered it wasn't.

Unlike most restaurants that make you queue up when they are full, at Mentouan you write your name and number of people in your party on a list. This allows you to browse the shops close by rather than standing there the whole time.

There are only a couple of soup options for the tofu skin "pouch". Beef curry, Dashi and Dashi with Mushrooms. I chose the Beef Curry and thoroughly enjoyed it! It was a well balanced curry with a fair amount of heat, but not too much. After I was done with the Udon noodles I finished off the tofu which was also good.

As we were leaving the restaurant, the chef was in the entry way. I asked for a photo...