1 / 3Udon at a self-service millPhoto: open-arms / CC BY 2.0
Tap a photo to see it large. 3 photographs, every one credited.
Checked against official sources · updated · Takumi Yamada
Kagawa eats more udon per head than anywhere in Japan. At a seimenjo you take a bowl, hand it over for noodles, add your own broth and toppings from the counter, and pay by the plate. From about ¥300, and better than anything you will pay ten times for.
- Our number 2 for Takamatsu, out of ten. It is the first thing we would spend the hours on.
- Short enough to be certain of: 1 hr 30 min door to door, so even a tender day works.
- Reachable on foot from the berth, so no timetable can strand you.
- It is not only a photo stop: a prefecture that eats more noodles than anywhere in japan, because it could not grow rice.
- 1 hr 30 min door to door needs a 3.5-hour call: a 2–3 hour stop cannot hold it. Pick something closer instead.
Why Udon at a self-service mill is famous
A prefecture that eats more noodles than anywhere in Japan, because it could not grow rice
Kagawa eats more udon per head than anywhere in Japan and renamed itself Udon Prefecture to say so. The self-service mills are the local form: you queue, say the size, add your own broth and toppings, and pay by what is on the tray. Some open at six in the morning for people on their way to work.
Kagawa is the smallest prefecture in Japan and eats the most udon. That is not a quirk of taste — it is what happens when a region has too little rain for rice, plenty of wheat and salt, and a sea full of the small dried fish that make the broth.
Plus salt flats and dried sardine
Cheap, filling, and made from what is here
The self-service seimenjo format
From about ¥300, in sheds with no sign
Have kamatama at a self-service mill, then a small kake somewhere else. Twice in one day is normal here.
Three places, three different answers
The one the queue agrees on, the one people who live here use instead, and the one nearest your ship. Opening days change; check before you build a day around one.
A full-service restaurant in an old estate house near Yashima, 25–30 minutes out, not a self-service mill. We have not checked its hours.
Open in Google MapsWhere locals goNakanoudon Gakko中野うどん学校A paid udon-making class for visitors, not a self-service mill. We have not checked its hours; book with the school.
Open in Google MapsClosest to the berthMerikenya Takamatsu Ekimaeめりけんや 高松駅前店By JR Takamatsu, open 7:00–20:00 every day.
Open in Google MapsRoutes that already include it
Each one is a finished day timed from the official timetables, with this stop in it. Read the route rather than assembling it yourself.
What to put beside it
Each of these still lands you back aboard with the hour to spare.
2 hr 30 min for bothWasanbon sugar
A fine-grained sugar made from local sugarcane by a hand-kneading process that takes days, pressed into small moulded sweets shaped as flowers and leaves.
See the detail
2 hr 45 min for bothTakamatsu Castle
One of only three Japanese castles moated with seawater, taken directly from the sea.
See the detail
3 hr 30 min for bothHonetsuki-dori
A whole chicken leg roasted hard with garlic and black pepper, eaten with your hands and mopped with cabbage.
See the detail