Ramen is a delicious Japanese favourite food, particularly on a cold winter night. It consists of a tasty broth, noodles, two slices of pork, a sprinkle of spring onion with a few extras, including tasty pickled ginger. It is simple, hearty, good-for-you Japanese food.

Some places make the broth by boiling pork bones and using the marrow as a main stock. This creates a unique, and frankly nasty, smell. However, if your nose and taste buds adapt, you can, so I’m told, find this delicious after some time.

Fortunately, Dan and I don’t have to adapt in this way, as we have found a tasty, non-bone boiling, famous ramen restaurant just up the coast from our apartment. We have been told it had a TV show made about it and it is extremely popular! In fact, it used to be situated in central Shimonoseki but found the old building was too small for their popularity. So they upped sticks and moved 10k up the coast, forcing their fans to make an effort to sample their ramen (which, from what we have seen, they all do!)

We stumbled across the restaurant on a summer evening whilst taking part in an exploratory bike ride. It gets rural quite quickly as you head up the west coast of Japan from our digs in Kajikuri and so we didn’t expect our noses to tingle in such a good way as we approached the modest orange and cream building. But they did and we were drawn in!

The restaurant is in a traditional ramen style with a bar around the chef and some floor seating by the windows. The menu is simple and straightforward, as they have perfected what they know and offer no frills. Apart from the tasty food, the next best thing is the view. The sweeping coastline of Yamaguchi prefecture and west-facing windows makes this restaurant the perfect place to watch the sunset. This view rarely fails to provide sunsets of brilliant oranges and pinks.

A happy accidental find that means we will be able to indulge in delicious ramen on a near weekly basis, all for the cost of a Pret Sandwich. Thank you #Yamaguchi