Arashi — Restaurant in Okinawa

This little chain of Ramen places, particularly the one on Hwy 58 down from Kadena AB, became an INSTANT favorite of our family. Best known to the local American populace as Ticket Ramen or The Ticket Place, Arashi's features some amazingly wonderful Ramen dishes. Let's face it: there are a bazillion Ramen noodle places here on island but this particular one distinguishes itself from the rest with its famed GARLIC RICE! How to describe Garlic Rice? Uh-MAZE-Ing. Simple. The whole ordeal, from the moment you enter the cramped entrance and stare, dumbfounded at the little ticket machine filled with buttons mixed with Japanese wording, to the smells that launch an all out passionate dance with your Old Factor nerve, to the waiters running around picking up people's tickets and delivering their order is one finely executed chaos. The ticket machine is where you order your meal. Simply insert yen, push the button of the food you want and a ticket pops out. Be mindful that everything on here is written in Japanese with the exception of the Garlic Rice button. Someone took the time to tape a little piece of yellow paper on it that has "Garlic Rice" written in english. Once you are finished ordering, hit the coin eject lever to receive your change. You find an available place to plop your bottom and a waiter will be over to take your tickets, If you get the Garlic Rice, he or she will ask if you want GARLIC or SOY. Go with Soy. Garlic means they put a little extra garlic on your rice/no soy and Soy means they just put soy on your rice. Again, go with Soy. There are several types of Ramen to chose from (Pork, sweet Pork Soy, fish, fish and pork, BLACK MONSTER, etc), but we recommend the Garlic Rice. Basically its a 9 inch skillet with rice in it. Then they add butter, garlic, something else and two freshly cracked eggs. Then they bring this extremely hot dish to your plate, along with two big spoons. If you ordered soy, this is the time they will pour the soy onto your rice. From here, you grab the two big spoons and start mixing. You basically fry the egg up and mix everything up all at once. Don't be bashful and don't let it sit, as your rice will burn on the bottom. Once this is done, you can either brave eating it with your chopsticks or wimp-out and use the spoons. Either way, you are a winner for going here and...

You'll want to try the fried rice, it's fried in a superheated cast iron pan as it is handed to you, the two large spoons on the plate are then used to stir the concoction together to your desired mixedness. Eggs are on the bottom rice is on the top and the sauce is added at the table.

I do realize that the Ramen here is mass produced and not cooked up daily by a Ramen Zen Master (I'm guessing since the workers are all teenagers) but to me it is still up there with the best of them.

I've been to a couple different locations and while it is small this is my favorite one. The waiter coming to your table to take your order rather than using a vending machine to order like the Chatan branch location feels a little bit more personal, aside from that all the dishes are pretty much the same. They do have an English menu, with the pictures you don't...

Came to this spot off of Facebook recommendations. Leading off, this is a small chain restaurant. You order your meal through an electronic ticket machine that you can switch to English. We ordered a spicy pork ramen and a gyoza set with pork rice. All were delicious and served quickly. I read reviews complaining about how cooked the noodles were and I will say mine were al dénte (fully cooked but a little chewy) but I had no issues with this. The spicy broth was very good with solid heat. If you regularly enjoy spicy foods you will enjoy this, however if you think Sprite is "Spicy Water" you're gonna have a bad time All in all an enjoyable experience for under $20 American for two people....