Keypoints
- Marugame Seimen is a Japanese udon noodle chain restaurant
- Their careful selection of ingredients and process of cooking makes their udon so tasty
What is Marugame Seimen?
Marugame Seimen (丸亀製麺) is an udon noodle chain restaurant in Japan. Udon noodle is a type of Japanese noodle made from thick wheat flour.
Marugame Seimen is run by TORIDOLL Holdings Corporation, a Japanese chain restaurant company, and since the first shop opened in 2000, they have been providing many people with a variety of comforting udon dishes with reasonable prices.
According to their website, Marugame Seimen is dedicated to four things:
- The warmth of people: In order to serve freshly made udon and make their customers’ experience at Marugame Seimen enjoyable, they use carefully selected ingredients and take time to make each dish one by one at each shop.
- Udon noodles: Marugame Seimen only uses Japanese wheat flour to make udon noodles because of its great taste and aroma. They use only three ingredients: wheat flour, salt, and water. The amount of time to boil the udon noodles is different, depending on the type of dish. Especially for kamaage udon, the most simple style of udon, the boiling time is very important, and Marugame Seimen is very strict about the boiling time so that they can serve the best udon noodles for their customers.
- Soup: They prepare fresh white base sauce for Kake-dashi and tsuke-dashi sauces everyday at each shop. They think that making a large amount of soup at once can lead to providing lower-quality tasting soup. They use Japanese kelps as the base ingredient, and add dried fish, including bonito, herring, and mackerel, to the kelps and slowly cook them together. They then add soy sauce, sugar, and mirin to make soup that is rich in smell and taste.
- Condiments: Marugame Seimen believes that condiments have an significant role to help make udon delicious. Thus, they provide well-selected toppings. One of them is their brown ginger. Brown ginger might not look as tasty as Chinese ginger that has a yellow color.
- However, Marugame Seimen uses Japanese ginger, because of its right level of spiciness and aroma, which helps make the taste of udon richer. Another condiment is the Welsh onions. Marugame Seimen only uses Japanese-grown onions.
What can you order?
Marugame Seimen serves 10 types of udon dishes. For many of the dishes, you can choose either hot or cold. They are available for ¥290 to ¥510. There are also seasonal specials, and the current seasonal special is Gyu-toro-tama udon, which has hot grilled beef, half-boiled egg, and grated yam on the top of udon.
As for side items, they serve five kinds of onigiri (rice balls) and nine kinds of tempura. You can order as many items as you like to make your own udon dish to enjoy. You can see their menu here.
Self-service order style
Marugame Seimen is a self-service udon restaurant. Here are seven simple steps to enjoy the self-service udon:
- Order udon: There are either regular size or large size. There are extra large and family size only for kamaage udon. You can also choose a serving style from either hot or cold depending on the dish.
- Receive the udon you have ordered: while you are waiting for the udon to be cooked, have a tray ready. After receiving the udon, move forward to the side menu section.
- Choose side items: There are several food choices such as onigiri (rice balls), eggs, and tempura.
- Pay for the food: You will pay for the udon and the food you take at the side item section.
- Get free toppings: There are free condiments such as ginger and onion.
- Enjoy your udon!
- Bring the dish to a return counter: When you finish eating, you are expected to bring the tray and dishes you have used to the counter.
Udon making experience for kids
Kids can take a class to learn how to make udon from scratch at some of Marugame Seimen shops in Japan. Those who are five years old to the sixth grade can participate. The shops holding the event and schedules are available here.
Kids will make dough, then step on it to make the noodle stronger, which sounds really fun. Then they cut the dough using special knives for cutting noodles. After boiling them, kids can eat the freshly made udon at the shop.
Their history
November 2000: The first Marugame Seimen shop opened in Kakogawa, Hyogo.
September 2003: The first food court shop opened in Kobe, Hyogo.
April 2011: The first overseas shop opened in Waikiki, Hawaii.
May 2011: Marugame Seimen stores in all prefectures in Japan were open.
2012: The first shop in Thailand China, and Korea opened.
April 2013: The first shop in Taiwan opened in Taipei.
January 2014: The first shop in Vietnam opened in HCMC.
November 2015: The first shop in Cambodia opened in Phnom Penh.
Passionate udon
Marugame Seimen never compromises on the quality of their udon noodles, soup, and toppings in order to serve the best kind of udon throughout Japan. And what is great is that such high quality udon is available for just a few hundred yen. Go to Marugame Seimen to enjoy the appetizing udon made with their passion!
