One-coin lunches still exist in Asakusa, but now to find out if it’s money well spent.

In Japan, there’s a concept called the “one-coin lunch,” meaning a lunch you can buy for 500 yen (US$3.25) or less, since 500 yen is the largest yen coin. However, in recent years it’s getting harder and harder to find one-coin lunches, and depending on where in Japan you’re at and what you’re eating it can sometimes even be tough to find appealing lunch options within 1,000 yen, the smallest yen bill.

Even once ultra-affordable meals like ramen have been rapidly rising in price, and especially so in areas that get a lot of tourist traffic, especially if they attract a lot of international travelers. So imagine our surprise the other day when we were out and about in Tokyo’s Asakusa neighborhood, where the local Sensoji Temple is one of the biggest tourist draws in all of Japan, and stumbled across a one-coin lunch spot.

The stylized script on the restaurant’s main sign makes it kind of tricky to tell what direction the characters are supposed to be read in, but the intent here is らぁめん めん〇, or “Ramen Menmaru.” Arguably the most important part of the signage, though, is the smaller board saying 400えん, or “400 yen.”

Yes, not only does Menmaru offer a one-coin ramen, but you’ll even get change back if you pay with a 500-yen coin! This was an offer too tempting to pass up, especially since Menmaru is located on the Asakusa Hisago Shopping Street, just a two-minute walk from Sensoji and well within the radius of where businesses feel they can get away with premium pricing that tourists will put up with.

▼ The walk from Sensoji to Menmaru

To order, you purchase a meal ticket from a vending machine, and taking a look at the other options we saw that Menmaru seems to offer good value across the board, with even its large-size and extra-topping ramen coming in at 600 yen or less. But it was the 400-yen ramen that had drawn us in, so that’s what we ordered.

There’s counter seating inside, or you can grab a spot at one of the folding tables set up in front of the storefront. After we handed our meal ticket to the staff, we sat down and waited, feeling a little bit of trepidation that, what with it’s extremely low price, the 400-yen ramen would be such a sparse, low-quality version of the dish that we’d end up wishing we’d splurged for noodles at a more expensive place.

But these fears quickly scattered when we had our food in front of us and saw that he really did have a proper bowl of ramen for just 400 yen, with sliced chashu pork, menma (bamboo shoots), sliced onion, and nori (dried seaweed).

Tokyo’s traditional ramen broth is soy sauce based, but Menmaru’s take on it is surprisingly elaborate, as we also tasted some rich tonkotsu (pork stock) and torigara (chicken stock) notes, and there’s even some ginger in the mix too. Impressively, the resulting flavor doesn’t taste busy or messy, with all of the elements working in harmony for a remarkably straightforward deliciousness.

The noodles are thin and straight, and have a reservedly starchy flavor to keep them from getting in the way of the outstanding broth.

Rather than immediately knocking you over with how it tastes, Menmaru’s flavor gently builds as you eat, and by the time we were done, we could feel the ramen-delivered joy and comfort permeating throughout our stomach and psyche.

With quality and value this good, in hindsight it’s no surprise that Menmaru had plenty of customers even when we stopped by on a weekday a little before 2 o’clock. The customer turnover was speedy, though and we had less than a five-minute wait for a seat to open up, so we’ll definitely have to keep this place in mind the next time we’re in the mood to see the sights in Asakusa, but not in the mood for any tourist-price gouging.

Restaurant information
Ramen Menmaru / らぁめん めん◯
Address: Tokyo-to, Taito-ku, Asakusa 2-15-2
東京都台東区浅草2-15-2
Open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. (weekdays), 9 a.m.-6 p.m. (weekends, holidays)
Closed Tuesdays

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