We head to the most unique branch of Gyoza no Manshu there is.

Gyoza no Manshu is a casual restaurant chain, and their most popular menu item is gyoza (pot stickers). Of course, Gyoza no Manshu has other things too, so they’re not exclusively in the gyoza business. They’re also in the ramen business, and the fried rice business…and the hot spring hotel business!?!

Yep. Located in the town of Numata in Gunma Prefecture, Gyoza no Manshu Tomeikan is a ryokan (Japanese inn) with its own onsen (hot spring baths). There are a couple of other unique aspects to the place too, so we decided to pay it a visit.

We’d planned our trip for mid-March, and there turned out to be a lot more snow in the town than we’d expected. No matter, though – cold weather just makes a dip in a hot spring bath feel even better.

Driving across the suspension bridge that goes over the river that runs through the town’s Oigami Onsen neighborhood, we spotted the Tomeikan (東明館) at the top of the embankment…

…and Gyoza no Manshu’s mascot character Ran-chan beckoning us into the parking lot with the restaurant chain’s promise that their gyoza are “30 percent more delicious” than anyone else’s.

Stepping inside, we found a bright and spacious lobby with a simple, rustic charm to it.

There were shelves with guest amenities to grab…

…and an area with couches, views of the surrounding scenery, and a decorative display celebrating Hinamatsuri/the Doll Festival.

This is all pretty standard stuff for hot spring inns in Japan. What isn’t standard, though, is a gyoza restaurant attached to the lobby!

Yes, there’s a Gyoza no Manshu branch inside the hotel, and to our pleasant surprise, the prices aren’t upscaled at all. This branch charges the same as any other Gyoza no Manshu location, meaning plates of gyoza for just 330 yen (US$2.25) and bowls of ramen for 550 yen!

Speaking of affordable prices, Tomeikan has a unique room rate system. The price per adult staying overnight is 6,500 yen (US$44), and the hotel charges that exact same rate 365 days a year, with no price bumps for weekends, holidays, or other peak travel times. The rate for elementary school kids is 5,200 yen a night, for kids age 3 to 5 it’s 4,200 yen, and children younger than that stay for free. Breakfast plans are similarly affordable, 1,000 yen for adults and 800 yen for kids (note that there is a supplementary fee of 2,100 yen for individual adult travelers staying in a room by themselves).

After checking in, we were given the key to our room on the third floor. We opened the door…

…and stepped into a beautiful interior space.

The hotel just completed a major renovation project last November, and the place still looks like new, invitingly fresh and spotless.

Any doubts we might have had about a gyoza restaurant chain running a ryokan were quickly swept away, and we headed back down to the first floor to hop in the hot spring with a heightened sense of excitement.

▼ Entrance to the men’s bath area

The hotel’s bath water is brought up straight from the source with no non-hot spring water mixed in to dilute it. The water is gentle to the skin and warmed us to our core.

Further cementing Tomeikan’s status as a legitimate hot spring inn, there’s also an outdoor bath area. Because of when we’d timed our trip, this let us experience the balancing contrasts of the air’s chill and the water’s warmth, an immensely relaxing combination.

Note that photography is ordinarily not allowed in the bath area, but we’d made special arrangements to do our shoot, with our reporter Ahiruneko volunteering as model. We were also allowed to take a look at the women’s bath area while it was empty of customers during its daily cleaning/maintenance period.

With our luggage dropped and bodies washed, now it was time for dinner, so we headed to the lobby’s attached Gyoza no Manshu. As is the custom in ryokan, we’d removed our shoes at the building’s entrance area, and it was a bit of a surreal feeling to be eating at a Gyoza no Manshu in socks and slippers, but having just gotten out of the bath, that casual dress code made for a very cozy atmosphere.

Naturally we started off with gyoza, which were delicious.

This particular branch also has an expanded alcoholic drink menu, but keeps its prices very reasonable, with draft beer, shochu sour cocktails, and whiskey highballs all under 500 yen a glass.

They also have some exclusive menu items designed for easy sharing with your travel companions, like sliced chashu pork, shrimp in chili sauce, and sweet and sour pork.

Walking way from the table happy and full, we decided to check out the rest of the hotel, which has relaxation spaces with both Western-style couches and chairs as well as traditional Japanese tatami reed floor zones.

On the other hand, if you’re feeling active/competitive, there are free-to-use ping pong tables.

And with the baths still open at night, an additional after-dinner soak is also an option.

The hotel staff was also kind enough to show us a few of the other guestroom configurations. While the room we were staying in had futon sleeping mats (which guests put out themselves)…

…the recent renovation has reconfigured a number of rooms to have beds instead, like the three-bed rooms seen here

Also, remember how we said earlier that there’s a supplementary charge for solo travelers? There are actually a few rooms where that extra fee is waived, on account of the rooms not including a private bathroom or shower.

Considering that you’ll want to be bathing down in the area for the hot spring baths anyway, and that there are restrooms there too, not having those facilities in-room actually isn’t such a big problem.

Since we’d opted for the breakfast plan for an additional 1,000 yen, we rolled out of our futons in the morning and down once again to the lobby’s Gyoza no Manshu, where breakfast is served.

A row of self-serve rice cookers with white rice, okayu (Japanese rice porridge) and rice cooked with carrots, burdock root, and locally picked maitake mushrooms was waiting for us.

Available side dishes included miso soup, soft-boiled eggs, salad, chicken, and, yes, even gyoza!

We have to admit that pan-fried gyoza, called yakigyoza in Japanese, seem like they’d be a bit heavy to start the day with. However, the suigyoza (boled gyoza) that we had were just right for a morning meal.

And to polish off breakfast, we sipped on a hot cup of coffee, with Ran-chan keeping us company.

So yes, as weird as the concept might initially seem, Japan’s hot spring inn that’s managed by a pot sticker chain really is a great place to stay. We’re a touch sad that Tomeikan has announced that it will have “revised” prices from this April, which almost certainly means they’ll be going up, but as long as the bump isn’t too extreme this is a place we’d be happy to stay at again, especially with such affordable meals available.

Hotel information
Gyoza no Manshu Tomeikan / ぎょうざの満洲 東明館
Address: Gunma-ken, Numata-shi, Tonemachi Oyo 1519-2
群馬県沼田市利根町大楊1519−2
Website

Photos ©SoraNews24
● Want to hear about SoraNews24’s latest articles as soon as they’re published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!
[ Read in Japanese ]