上原屋本店 Ueharaya Honten @Takamatsu

On our way to 栗林公園 Ritsurin-koen, we made a special visit to the local speciality famous 讃岐うどん Sanuki Udon shop 上原屋本店 Ueharaya honten nearby. It is said that while udon is widely available throughout Japan, nobody makes it better and cheaper than in 香川 Kagawa Prefecture.

This is a popular lunch venue with locals working nearby, as it provided a very delicious meal at very affordable prices. It was a short wait outside the shop, as turnover was very fast. Almost everything is self-service. Once you decide on the type and size of udon, you just need to select your side dishes, pay up, and cook the udon yourself, or add the desired toppings yourself. Then you hunt for a table, finish your meal, and return your tray.

There were a few basic types of udon, with small and large portions going for ¥250 and ¥350 respectively. This place is famous for cold udon, but as we were already feeling very cold, we opted for the hot versions instead. Tempura prices ranged from ¥100 to ¥200 per piece, and each piece was huge!

Hubby especially enjoyed the experience of cooking his own かけうどん Kake Udon, while we girls went for the dipping style 釜あげうどん Kamaage Udon.

Both were very delicious! We loved the evenly firm and chewy texture! The udon that I had tried in Singapore so far usually had this almost soggy exterior which I did not like. We also grabbed a few pieces of tempura to share around. Hubby especially liked to dip the tempura into his soup to soften it. We ate to our hearts’ content before heading to 栗林公園 Ritsurin-koen to walk off the calories, haha!