In a town famed for its ramen, there can only be room for one winner—but take your time and relish the job of deciding at the Daitsukemenhaku Strongest Ramen Festival in Machida.

The sheer variety of options at the festival mean you’ll have some tough decisions to make—not only which ramen to choose, but which weekend. Spread across six this year, the festival has grown considerably – with a fully-illustrated guide on their website. (Danger: do not look at the list if you aren’t within an arm’s reach of some ramen, otherwise it’s basically torture). This year it is called the Fierce Ramen Festival, and fierce it is. The weekends are divided into themes and and all are incredibly promising, ranging from rich in the first week, to Soy Sauce enhancement week and “The Strongest Meat System” translation not ideal, I guess. . (Of course, any decision-making problems can be solved by simply going every weekend and eating everything, although as tempting as this is, don’t hold us responsible if you explode/eat so much ramen you hate it forever.)

As well as copious amounts of delicious ramen, there is also a great variety of tsukemen—the dipping noodles which are famed in Machida. This year they have also added fried rice and gyoza, so you basically never need to leave. Bowls of goodness can be bought using tickets which are bought at special stalls for 850 yen—simplifying the whole process enormously. The gyoza tickets are 600yen and rice tickets are 500yen.

So, take up the gauntlet of deciding on this town’s strongest ramen, in as many categories as you can handle, and even learn a few tricks of the trade. (You can always relax at the squirrel park between bowls if needs be!)

Dates:

March 30th – April 2nd    11am-9pm
April 6th – 9th    11am-9pm
April 13th – 16th     11am-9pm
April 20th – 23rd     11am-9pm
April 27th – 30th    11am-9pm
May 2nd – 7th     11am-9pm