ようこそ、インデペンダント紙の読者達！(Welcome Independent UK Readers!)

Well, a couple days ago I made a brief post that I would be taking a brief refrain from making posts. But that was before I saw that Michael Booth's article "Souped Up: A Whiste-stop tour of Tokyo's best ramen restaurants" had hit the print and digital pages of the Independent UK. So, Independent UK readers, welcome to Ramenate! May you waste as many hours drooling here as Michael claims to have done.


A couple of months back, my ramen homies Keizo of Goramen.com and Rick of Rameniac.com spent a day with Michael and article photographer Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert, sharing bowls on a whirlwind tour of Tokyo ramen. Since I missed NY Times reporter Matt Gross when he wrote up his own stateside ramen article a few months back, it was a pleasure to get to talk (and eat!) noodles for a full day with Michael and the crew. And a greater pleasure still to read the final article. I still don't think I've worked off the weight gained from eating three bowls in roughly as many hours. And I didn't even manage to stick around for the fourth and final bowl of the day - I had plans for dinner...Gyôza!


Though I have yet to upload the pics from that day, readers curious about the shops we visited can check out my old posts and write-ups: TETSU, Harukiya, and Ebi Soba Keisuke. If you're still hungry for more, just click the "highly recommended" tag and see what strikes your fancy. British people say that, right? If you're checking in now for the first time, unfortunately you've managed to catch the blog in a bit of a slow period (the dissertation calleth - see below), but there's upwards of 300 bowls logged thus far and a lot more to come in the future, so enjoy! Maybe some day the UK will finally get some decent ramen shops of its own...or maybe you should just do what Michael did and hop the next plane to Tokyo!