What to Eat in Yokohama: 20 Should-Attempt Meals for Each Customer

Iekei ramen is Yokohama’s most necessary contribution to Japanese meals tradition: a wealthy hybrid broth combining pork bone (tonkotsu) with chicken-based soy sauce tare, served with thick, straight noodles, three slices of chashu pork, spinach, and sheets of nori leaning in opposition to the bowl wall. The type was invented in 1974 by Minoru Yoshimura at Yoshimuraya in Yokohama — the primary of a whole lot of “ya” (home) suffix retailers that type the Iekei household tree.

The broth is thicker and saltier than Tokyo-style ramen, with a particular hen oil added on the finish that provides it a shiny, deeply savory end. Yoshimuraya in Kanagawa Ward stays the unique, with a everlasting queue. The Iekei Tokyo in Yokohama Station space is extra accessible for first-time guests.

Sanmamen was born in Yokohama round 1947, initially created as a meal for kitchen employees within the metropolis’s Chinese language eating places. The defining characteristic is its sauce: a thick, shiny ankake (starch-thickened) glaze of stir-fried greens — bean sprouts, Chinese language cabbage, carrots, pork, and typically seafood — poured sizzling over a bowl of sunshine soy-sauce ramen. The starchy topping stays sizzling far longer than common ramen toppings and clings to the noodles.

Sanmamen is sort of completely present in Kanagawa Prefecture, notably in Yokohama and Kawasaki. It represents the direct affect of Yokohama’s Chinese language restaurant tradition on native Japanese meals.

Miura Maguro Ramen is a specialty from the Miura Peninsula on the southern tip of Kanagawa — one in every of Japan’s main tuna fishing areas. The broth is constructed on a tuna-based dashi fairly than the usual pork or hen inventory, giving it a clear, oceanic depth that’s completely not like something present in Yokohama’s ramen scene. Slices of recent or marinated maguro tuna substitute the chashu pork because the centrepiece topping.

Miura Metropolis is 60 minutes from Yokohama Station by Keikyu Line. The ramen was developed as a means to make use of your complete tuna, together with cuts that eating places wouldn’t usually function sashimi.

Yokohama shumai (spelled “Siumai” in native utilization) is town’s most iconic meals and a supply of intense civic pleasure. The Yokohama type is distinguished by a filling of coarsely floor pork blended with dried scallop powder — a method launched by崎陽軒 (Kiyoken) in 1928 — which supplies the dumpling a noticeably candy, oceanic depth. Every shumai is small, agency, and topped with a single inexperienced pea. They’re served with soy sauce and karashi mustard.

Kiyoken‘s cold-eaten shumai — developed to be scrumptious even with out reheating, for practice journeys — turned one in every of Japan’s most beloved ekiben (practice station bento) experiences. The Shumai Bento bought at Yokohama Station has been served since 1954 and sells over 50,000 items every day.

Yokohama Chinatown’s dim sum tradition is probably the most developed outdoors of Hong Kong in Asia. Steamed har gow (shrimp dumplings), siu mai, cheung enjoyable rice noodle rolls, char siu bao (BBQ pork buns), dan tart (egg custard tarts), and turnip cake are served tableside in bamboo steamers at devoted yum cha eating places. The Chinatown’s dim sum high quality considerably surpasses what is usually discovered at Chinese language eating places elsewhere in Japan.

Weekend mornings from 10am–2pm are peak dim sum hours. Heichinrou and Manchinrou are the 2 most celebrated high-end Chinatown eating places, each working for the reason that Meiji period. Finances-friendly choices line Chukagai Odori, the principle Chinatown avenue.

Strolling by means of Yokohama Chinatown and consuming a freshly steamed nikuman (steamed pork bun) from a street-side store is without doubt one of the metropolis’s most iconic meals experiences. Yokohama’s Chinatown nikuman are considerably bigger and extra elaborately crammed than the comfort retailer variations discovered nationwide — fluffy white dough encasing a dense, juicy filling of minced pork, bamboo shoots, ginger, and shiitake mushrooms. Specialty variations embody black sesame, custard, and seafood fillings.

The large 600g “king nikuman” served at a number of Chinatown retailers has develop into a social media phenomenon and a real Yokohama expertise. Even the usual model is a meal in itself.

Nama shirasu don is Kanagawa’s most beloved seafood bowl: a beneficiant mound of uncooked child sardines (shirasu) served ice-cold over heat sushi rice, garnished with grated ginger, inexperienced onions, and a drizzle of soy sauce. The shirasu have to be caught that morning to be served uncooked — the slender, translucent fish have a gentle, oceanic taste and an nearly creamy texture when ultra-fresh.

The Shonan coast cities of Kamakura and Enoshima are the premier locations for nama shirasu don, with the fishing boats touchdown catches at Koshigoe Port simply minutes from the eating places. The season runs roughly April to December, with August and September producing peak high quality.

Past the celebrated uncooked model, shirasu seems throughout Kanagawa’s meals tradition in a number of preparations: kama shirasu (gently boiled, frivolously salted), tama shirasu (dried within the solar), and shirasu pasta (a Shonan coastal invention that has unfold nationwide). Shirasu pizza, shirasu toast, and shirasu tempura are all served at seashore cafes alongside the Shonan and Miura shoreline.

The Kanagawa shoreline produces over 3,000 tonnes of shirasu yearly, making it one in every of Japan’s high three shirasu fishing areas. The fish are so delicate that they deteriorate inside hours of touchdown, making the Shonan and Miura variations incomparable in freshness.

Kamakura, half-hour from Yokohama by practice, sits immediately on Sagami Bay and presents a few of Kanagawa’s most interesting seafood eating. Native catches embody kinmedai (splendid alfonsino), aji (horse mackerel), tako (octopus), and seasonal sakuraebi (cherry shrimp) from Suruga Bay. The city’s seafood eating places alongside Yuigahama and Zaimokuza seashores serve kaisendon (seafood rice bowls) and freshly grilled entire fish at lunch costs that drop dramatically on weekdays.

Gyunabe is one in every of Japan’s most traditionally vital dishes: beef sizzling pot cooked in a shallow iron pan with soy sauce, sugar, mirin, and inexperienced onions — the direct ancestor of sukiyaki. When Yokohama’s port opened in 1859, Western merchants introduced beef-eating tradition to Japan, and town’s eating places started serving gyunabe as a method to let Japanese prospects expertise beef for the primary time. The dish turned a logo of Meiji-era modernization.

Genuine gyunabe is distinguished from sukiyaki by its earthier, much less candy broth and the normal use of an iron pan fairly than a sukiyaki pot. The meat is dipped in uncooked egg earlier than consuming. Juyukaku in Yokohama’s Kannai district is probably the most celebrated gyunabe restaurant.

Yokohama’s Tsurumi Ward accommodates one in every of Japan’s largest Koreatown concentrations, and its yakiniku (Korean-style BBQ) eating places are among the many finest within the Kanto area. The proximity to Yokohama’s port — by means of which Korean employees arrived all through the twentieth century — created an genuine Korean-Japanese meals tradition distinct from the extra tourist-oriented Korea-towns in Tokyo. Galbi (quick rib), samgyeopsal (pork stomach), and naengmyeon (chilly noodles) are the celebrities.

Yokosuka Kaigun Curry is Japan’s most traditionally vital curry dish: a recreation of the precise recipe served aboard Imperial Japanese Navy ships from the Meiji period, based mostly on the official Navy cookbook. The curry is delicate, thick, and barely candy — nearer to the British-style curry that the Navy adopted from Royal Navy rations than to the spice-forward Indian model. It’s served alongside a glass of milk and a easy salad, precisely because it was on naval vessels.

Yokosuka Metropolis, 40 minutes from Yokohama Station by Keikyu Line, actively promotes the dish as its regional id. Over 50 eating places within the metropolis serve licensed “Kaigun Curry” utilizing the historic recipe tips.

Pudding à la mode was invented in Yokohama in 1950 at Resort New Grand — a caramel-custard pudding served alongside ice cream, recent fruit, and whipped cream on an elaborate dessert plate. It turned the defining yoshoku (Western-influenced Japanese delicacies) dessert and has remained on the menus of Yokohama’s grand resorts and old-school cafes ever since. The dish displays Yokohama’s distinctive function as town the place Western eating tradition was first absorbed and remodeled by Japanese sensibility.

Yokohama has one in every of Japan’s strongest craft beer cultures, rooted in its lengthy historical past as a port metropolis the place overseas brewing traditions arrived earliest. Yokohama Beer (横浜ビール), based in 1999, brews distinctive ales and lagers utilizing native Kanagawa hops and substances together with Kamakura greens and Sagami Bay salt. The brewery taproom within the Kannai district is the anchor of Yokohama’s craft beer scene.

The town’s beer tradition is especially concentrated within the Kannai, Motomachi, and Minatomirai waterfront areas, the place transformed warehouse bars and harbor-view craft beer pubs create an environment not like something in Tokyo.

Yokohama’s meals id is formed by three forces that exist nowhere else in Japan concurrently: the port’s custom of worldwide alternate (courting to 1859), the presence of Japan’s largest Chinatown, and the Shonan coast’s extraordinary seafood. The result’s a metropolis the place Chinese language, Korean, Western, and conventional Japanese cuisines have been merging and evolving for over 160 years. Yokohama’s meals overview covers the important thing districts and eating philosophies in depth.

Kakigoori (shaved ice) holds a particular place in Kanagawa’s summer season meals tradition, notably alongside the Shonan coast the place seashore matsuri (festivals) and outside stalls serve the dessert from June by means of September. Yokohama’s kakigoori scene has advanced far past the essential school-festival variations — Motomachi and Kamakura cafes serve artisanal variations with pure fruit syrups, condensed milk, and purple bean paste constructed into the ice in layers.

Kamakura particularly has developed one in every of Japan’s most refined kakigoori cultures, with devoted retailers that supply regional substances together with Shonan yuzu, Sagamihara peaches, and regionally harvested azuki beans for his or her toppings.

Saka manjyu is a conventional steamed bun created from wheat flour dough fermented with rice koji (pure sake yeast), stuffed with candy purple bean paste. The koji fermentation offers the bun a lightweight, naturally leavened texture and a delicate sake-like perfume that distinguishes it from customary manju. Discovered all through the mountain and valley communities of inland Kanagawa, notably within the Tanzawa and Hakone foothill areas.

Herahera dango is a uniquely formed rice-flour dumpling from the Sajima space of Yokosuka Metropolis — flat and large like a spatula (hera) fairly than the usual spherical form. The dango is coated in candy purple bean paste (anko) and has a chewy, barely agency texture. The form is sensible in addition to distinctive: the flat type means extra floor space for the anko coating and simpler dealing with. An genuine native candy with nearly no presence outdoors Yokosuka.

Kanko yaki is a conventional drum-shaped baked snack from the Tsukui space of Sagamihara Metropolis in inland Kanagawa. Its spherical, barely convex form mimics the kakko drum utilized in Japanese imperial courtroom music (gagaku), from which the identify derives. The shell is a skinny, frivolously sweetened wheat batter baked till golden, stuffed with clean white bean paste or purple bean paste. Easy, elegant, and nearly unknown outdoors its house area — the definition of a real hidden native specialty.

The Japanese Christmas cake — a lightweight sponge layer cake coated in whipped cream and embellished with strawberries — was first popularized in Yokohama, the place Western bakery traditions arrived earliest by means of the port. The Fujiya confectionery firm, which standardized the Japanese Christmas cake format, originated its confectionery tradition by means of Yokohama. At the moment town’s patisseries produce a few of Japan’s most elaborate Christmas cake variations, and the custom of buying one on Christmas Eve stays deeply embedded in native household tradition.