Kourakuen （幸楽苑）

I've introduced lots of Ramen shops so far, but today let me show you the Ramen shop where a bowl of Ramen is the cheapest in Japan. The Japanese economy seemed to be recovering last year, but as you know many economies in developed countries have been sluggish, and the trend here is that people started to choose something very cheap again.

This shop belongs to a franchise chain "Kourakuen", which was established in 1954. As you can see on the illuminated board above, the cheapest Ramen you can have here is 290 yen, which is about 3.7 us dollars. You can see this Kourakuen's in local areas too. 

It was Friday night, but sadly I saw just a few customers besides us. I would have had a Ramen more happily with the shop filled with people. 

And this is the 290 yen Ramen. The taste was soy sauce, but the thing is an adult wouldn't feel full after having only this.  

So I ordered stir-fried rice as well. I think many of you would be familiar with Chinese food, and that they would have tried this before. This was priced about 2.4 dollars. 

I don't know when we'll start to see economic recovery again, but as Japan's economy stays depressed, the cheapest are the most likely to survive.