Ramen:

Mina and I are back from a quick trip to Japan for my sister-in-law's wedding, some meetings at Ritsumeikan University, and visits with friends. This was our first trip back since moving to the U.S. for graduate school, so it was good to see most of my friends (my sincerest apologies to those I didn't have time to get together with...I hope to be back over Christmas/New Year or next May at the latest), drink my fill of ice cold Japanese draft beer, and eat, eat, eat.

My regular reader will know that Mina and I drove 9 hours round trip this past Japanese to visit a Japanese supermarket in New Jersey and eat Ramen, so it will come as no surprise that I had a few bowls while I was in Japan. If you have never had a true bowl of ramen, you should realize that your experience with those packets of instant noodles that you get at the supermarket pale in comparison. I would be hard pressed to come up with another instant/convenience food that is so far away from the real thing. Maybe Totinos Pizza Rolls?

Anyway, this time around I had 2 really memorable bowls of Ramen. The first was on Day 2 of the trip, in the Akebonobashi section of Tokyo near Tokyo Women's University Hospital. This was a place called "Tengu" that claimed to have some of the more renowned "Tan-Tan Mein" in the city. Tan-Tan Mein is a ramen in a spicy soup that is heavy on the ground sesame. I have had it with both white and black sesame, and have to say that I prefer the white sesame version, which is what this shop specialized in. Not knowing what I was getting myself into, I ordered the shop's suggested heat level, though I could probably have gone a level or two higher for lunch without any problem. The noodles were perfectly al dente, the pork was lovely, and the soup was flavorful, with its sesame base very potent. We also shared an order of fried Gyoza, which were good, if not fantastic.

 

The next great bowl I had was closer to the end of the trip, on Day 15. We were back in Tokyo after 8 days of R&R in Mina's hometown of Iwaki and were staying with my sister- and brother-in-law in Eifuku-cho, which is just out west of Shinjuku. During my travels, I had noticed an outpost of an Eifuku-cho ramen joint among the ramen shops at Nagoya Station, and we got directions to it from my brother-in-law. The first thing that struck my about this bowl was its sheer size. This was one place that was not skimping on noodles, shar-sui pork, or soup. One taste, and I knew we had found something special.

The soup had a depth and complexity to it that I guessed (correctly, I later learned) came from smoked bonito flakes. It's hard to explain exactly how this tasted, but the combination of this flavor with the soy sauce "tare" that formed the backbone of this bowl was stunning. We ordered ours with raw eggs, and allowed those to cook in the hot broth while we slurped down the noodles. The char-sui was expertly cooked, and also carried the unmistakable taste of having been cooked over charcoal. This was a really great bowl of ramen.

Now, if only I could figure out how to make a soup that good, I could open a ramen shop here in the U.S. and be an ambassador for this amazing noodle experience. Anyone else out there have any great ramen stories or shops to recommend?