Inside Ikebukuro Gyoza Stadium, a dumpling theme park. (Namco Limited)

Theme parks of a new kind have lately been springing up across Japan. Conventional theme parks, such as Tokyo Disneyland and Osaka's Universal Studios Japan, are grand projects that require huge quantities of cash to construct and operate. The new parks are much smaller than that. And in the majority of cases, these are indoor facilities that have made the novel choice of food as their theme. These "food theme parks," as they are called, are whetting the appetites of the food-curious Japanese.

A Taste of the Best
The first food theme park in Japan, the Shinyokohama Raumen Museum, opened in 1994. Ramen, the theme of this facility, is a noodle dish that originated in China and has been adapted to suit Japanese tastes. It became explosively popular in the 1950s and 1960s, spread to all parts of Japan, and underwent a process of diversification. Today ramen is without doubt a genuine Japanese food.

At the Shinyokohama Raumen Museum, visitors can try out some of the most popular varieties of ramen all in one location. About seven or eight branches of well-established ramen shops from around the country are set up on a permanent basis, and the museum invites other famous eateries to offer their fare for limited periods. Featured frequently on television and in magazines, it attracts from 100,000 to 150,000 visitors each month.

Not far away, the Yokohama Curry Museum (site is Japanese only) opened in 2001. Popular curry restaurants in various parts of Japan have outlets here. Curry is another food that entered Japan from foreign shores and was adapted to Japanese tastes; the shops at the museum primarily serve Japanese-style and Indian-style curry.

New in 2002
Two new food theme parks made their debut in July 2002: the Ikebukuro Gyoza Stadium (site is Japanese only) in Tokyo and Naniwa Kuishinbo Yokocho (Osaka Eaters' Alley) in Osaka. The Ikebukuro Gyoza Stadium hosts 12 particularly popular restaurants specializing in gyoza (dumplings stuffed usually with minced pork and vegetables). Like ramen, gyoza are Chinese in origin, but the Japanese dumplings are usually pan-fried rather than boiled or steamed, and diners dip them in a soy sauce and vinegar mix when eating them. Temujin (site is Japanese only), a Kyushu restaurant, serves bite-size gyoza with an original sauce touched up with a citron garnish. Kirasse (site is Japanese only) offers dumplings delivered from several restaurants in Utsunomiya, a city in Tochigi Prefecture that has made itself famous for gyoza. Representing Yokohama's China Town is Shofukumon, which serves Hong-Kong-style dumplings that have been slightly modified for Japanese consumers.

Naniwa Kuishinbo Yokocho is the first food theme park in the Kansai region around Osaka. The project is something of a gamble, as Osaka is known for an overabundance of places to eat. Instead of focusing on a single food, Naniwa Kuishinbo Yokocho brings together 20 restaurants that are popular in and around Osaka. One is Hokkyokusei, the inventor of omu-raisu, an omelet filled with fried rice, which is today eaten throughout Japan. Another is Jiyuken (site is Japanese only), a curry restaurant famous for a dish in which rice and curry sauce are mixed together, on the center of which a raw egg is dropped.

The interior designs of both the Ikebukuro Gyoza Stadium and Naniwa Kuishinbo Yokocho are reminiscent of Japan's high-growth years. The former has the nostalgic look of urban shopping streets in the third decade of the Showa era (1955-64), when the high-growth period was getting underway, while the latter is modeled after downtown Osaka in the second half of the 1960s, a particularly lively period when the city was gearing up to host Osaka Expo '70.

Keeping Customers Coming Back
In addition to the four food theme parks already discussed, Japan has three more: Shimizu Sushi Museum in Shizuoka Prefecture, Otaru Unga Shokudo (Otaru Canal Cafeteria) in Hokkaido Prefecture, and Raumen Stadium in Fukuoka Prefecture. Surprisingly, the designer and manager behind as many as four of these parks (Ikebukuro Gyoza Stadium, Naniwa Kuishinbo Yokocho, Raumen Stadium, and Shinyokohama Curry Museum) is Namco, a leading video-game manufacturer.

In the amusement industry, the arcade business - of which Namco is a leading player - has peaked, and all except the largest theme parks, such as Tokyo Disneyland and Universal Studios Japan, are struggling to survive. This must have made the virgin territory of the food theme park look like a good place to explore. According to a Namco representative, "Customers come to the parks even in these difficult times because they offer sensory pleasures at reasonable prices." There is, moreover, still ample room for growth in this field. Namco forecasts that the number of these parks will increase to around 30 in the next three years.

In order to prevent an erosion of popularity, some of the older food theme parks are reshuffling their tenants and renewing their menus. As competition grows, each facility will need to redouble its efforts to keep customers coming back. From the consumers' point of view, this means they can look forward to satisfying their appetites at more parks with better fare.