The Cup of Noodles museum in Yokohama was well worth it (get there early if plan to go though, can get very busy).
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The best part of the museum is the chicken ramen factory, which you need to make a reservation for in advance. It is NOT the cup noodle factory.
Cup noodle factory: no reservations, draw on your cup, specify what toppings to put in
Chicken ramen factory: make ramen noodles from SCRATCH, send them off to be fried in front of you, draw the packaging
It's really worth the price of admission (1000 yen, maybe $6 USD) for the experience of making ramen noodles from scratch
My favorite part was the video that said Cup Noodles was invented when they tried to bring noodles to the USA and people in the USA didn't know what "cup" was. "丼？なにそれ？" in a super thick USA accent (lol). And thus they added the "cup" and "Cup Noodles was born"
Note: Whether or not it's a true story, it was the movie playing at the cup noodle museum in Yokohama
"What are chopsticks? What are bowls?" was in the subtitles I saw. I'm guessing it was a translation error, but the idea that Momofuku Ando introduced bowls to the US was pretty amusing.
It was really worth it. But seeing these claims leaves a bad taste on my mouth. It did seem to good to be true.
If you’re in Kansai, you can take the Hankyuu Takarazuka line to Ikeda, near Momofuku Andos birthplace, where they have a noodle museum which not only has a noodle factory experience but also a recreation of his childhood home.
I didn't know that the Hankyuu Takarazuka line stretches across the Pacific Ocean!
Maybe you meant to say Umeda Station (Osaka)?
I meant to say kansai (fixed), but I guess autocorrect had other plans.
Went there & it was really nice. Can also recommend visiting the lookout & shrine above the town, a really nice view of Ikede and the whole Osaka aglomeration from up there. :)
Also the asadora drama about the invention of noodles starring (unrelated) Sakura Ando: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manpuku
Eh, I had the opposite experience. It’s definitely very geared towards elementary school age children.
There were a lot of families there, but we did enjoy it as adults. Obviously no need to go a second time.
My favorite part is that near the end, there's an American newspaper article on the wall that says Ando was once imprisoned for tax evasion before inventing instant noodles. This is mentioned exactly nowhere else in the museum.