Jinrui Mina Menrui & Fried Rice Restaurant 人類みな麺類と焼き飯店 (Osaka, JAPAN) ★★★☆☆

Instead of having dinner in Kyoto and heading back to Osaka late, we decided to take off early before dinner time. That plan had worked out perfectly for us as we managed to arrive back in Osaka at around 6:30pm-ish. Still plenty of time to do some shopping before most shops close at 8pm.

Since we all woke up early this morning for our journey to Kyoto, nobody was in the mood for a fancy dinner tonight. Just a simple meal to allow us to retire early. With that in mind, I decided to bring us to Jinrui Mina Menrui & Fried Rice Restaurant (人類みな麺類と焼き飯店)’s pop-up at PARCO Shinsaibashi after shopping.

Since opening in 2012, Jinrui Mina Menrui has been a local sensation with its usually lengthy queues outside the ramen shop. Best known for its generous servings of Japanese braised pork belly, homemade thick noodles and flavorful soy sauce broth, the popular shoyu ramen specialist has become a staple in Tabelog's top ramen shops in Osaka. They are currently doing a year-long pop-up at PARCO Shinsaibashi and I thought with its location so close to our hotel, it would be the ideal choice for tonight's dinner destination. 👍🏻👍🏻

This location is offering a special fried rice dish on top of their signature shoyu ramen.

“All mankind’s noodles Yanihan” soy sauce ramen – Jinrui Mina Menrui's soy sauce ramen offers a few different versions including one infused with butter and pepper, garlic black, and sesame but for a purist like me, I would like nothing better than the original flavor.

The thick noodles were clogging up the intensely rich broth very nicely.

My ramen-loving son is a huge fan of shoyu ramen and it looks like that he has found his favorite shoyu ramen in Osaka tonight.

Yamaha Fried rice – I thought this was even better than the ramen. The rice had wonderful “wok hei” (鑊氣) and the ingredients including scrambled eggs, diced char siu and fresh chives had provided the rice with a lot of bite. 👍🏻 (although it was a little too salty).

Since both dishes were exceptionally flavorful, it came with little surprise that we kept reaching for iced water throughout the meal to quench our thirst.

The early dinner really provided us with the opportunity to unwind and crash early tonight. And that’s so important considering that we have another road trip to Nara tomorrow. This one starts early too…..

Food Rating: 6.6/10

Price: ￥￥

Address: B1F Shinsaibashi PARCO, 1-8-3 Shinsaibashisuji, Chuo-ku, Osaka, 542-0085 Japan

Closest Metro Station: Shinsaibashi

Opening Hours: 10:00am - 9:00pm daily