Ramenate!

Ramenate Sells Out? Or, Welcome Lucky Peach Readers!　ラーメネイトが裏切り者？ようこそ、百福の読者達！

2011-06-22T14:13:00.000-07:00

If this is your first time to Ramenate, welcome! If you're a long time reader, welcome back! It's been a while since the blog has been updated, but some exciting ramen-related news has come down the pike. If you're one of the newcomers, you probably already know what I'm talking about. An exciting new publication is hitting the newsstands, and between its covers you can find 174 pages of text and pictures devoted to that most slurpable noodle - ramen.

Lucky Peach, a new quarterly magazine brought to you by cooking impresario David Chang, food writer Peter Meehan, and the team at McSweeney's led by editor Chris Ying is on sale today. The concept is the total unpacking of a single topic from all the kaleidoscopic dimensions imaginable in a single issue. For the inaugural issue, it's all about ramen, fitting given the origins of Chang's culinary empire at the Momofuku Noodle Bar.

I'm not even sure where or how to begin talking up the contents of this mag - Mock-up posters of ramen legends like Ramen Jirô's Yamada Takumi and Taishôken's Yamagishi Kazuo? The NY Times' Ruth Reichl doing instant ramen reviews? An overview of the secret ramen stylings of New Orleans? A profile of Tokyo ramenista Ivan Orkin? Anthony Bourdain, David Chang, and Wylie Dufresne engaged in massive shit talking? Or perhaps a 5-page guide to the ins and outs of two dozen regional ramen varieties, as penned by a certain Ramen Nate? As the Chicago Tribune puts it, it is a "powerhouse line-up of food porn."

Yep, Ramenate has sold out, writing on ramen for the culture industry when they came knocking. I've probably taken some shots at Chang and co. in the past for turning ramen into a fine food for the downtown set, but the reality is, the dude has probably done more than any other individual to raise ramen's profile in NY and nationwide. Plus, anyone making the pilgrimage to Ramen Jirô to suck down a bowl deserves props, period. I feel lucky to be part of such a bitchin' line up, and I'm happy to have the chance to drop some much needed ramen knowledge on the collective bellies of the USA.

I think the mag is gonna be a big hit, what with that list of names as arranged in a piece of textual media crafted with the high end design that your hipster ass has come to expect from the like of McSweeney's. Lucky Peach has gotten press in the WSJ, Huffington Post, SF GATE, etc, etc, with no doubt more to come. It's also going to be released soon as an interactive iPad app for digital reading, for those of you who understand how that stuff works.

But, if you've already got yer grubby mitts on a copy, you already knew all that. So here's what this blog, Ramenate, is all about. Back in 2008, I moved from NY to Tokyo to do a few years of research on modern Japanese literature. The school I was attached to, Waseda University, happened to be ensconced among one of the highest concentrations of ramen shops in Tokyo, and a friend dared me to eat at them all. I started the blog to chronicle my conquests, and it kept growing from there, with hundreds of bowls being bagged before I moved back stateside last fall.

So, if this is your first time at Ramenate, take a visual stroll through my old postings - you might want to start with this post, which details some favorite bowls on the occasion of the blog being featured in Matt Gross' NY Times article last year. Or you can just click on the highly recommended tag and start scrolling. Just be ready to start drooling.

Updates have been slow recently, but I'm hoping to pick up the pace a bit and post up some of my last bowls from Japan, as well as other assorted ramen tidbits, and perhaps even some reviews of stateside noodles. So, stay tuned, "put me in your RSS feed," and if the pace of posting doesn't whet your noodle whistle, check out the blogs of my ramen-loving buddies in the sidebar. If you want to get in touch, catch me at ramenate@gmail.com. So, take a bite of that Lucky Peach and don't stop slurping!

筋が最もこってりに！(The plot thickens!)

2010-12-23T16:34:00.000-08:00

I'm not generally a big one for the celebrity gossip here at Ramenate, but this followup to the last post about LCD Soundsystem@Ramen Jirô is too good to pass up. Apparently James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem wasn't at Ramen Jirô alone! A bit of Twitter clickage reveals that his partners in gruzzling crime were rather hilarious comedian Aziz Ansari and NYC food man of the moment David Chang.

Paper trail from Ansari's Twitter -

Tokyo Day 2: Got destroyed by jiro ramen and met a creepy pregnant man mannequin.

That's him standing next to what he is imagining himself to look like after eating at Jirô.

But it looks like there was a little bit of drama (James Murphy again) -

ps. @davidchang and @azizansari totally tried to ditch me to go to jiro. screw you jerks.

Does this mean they tried to go BACK to Jirô like true ramen freaks ready to destroy their bow(e)ls all over again? I wonder which one they went to?

Mad props to whoever tipped off this unlikely trio to the wonders of Jirô. But what I'm wondering is, if Asian food remake maestro Chang, who got his start with the ramen re-imagination (or desecration, depending on how you see it) Momofuku Noodle Bar was getting his Tokyo noodle on, does that mean that New York might be in store for - gasp, dare I even think it - Our own Ramen Jirô clone?

ナイス！(Sweet!)

2010-12-20T20:42:00.000-08:00

So I'll be along shortly with a full rundown of the rad RAMEN FEVER event of a few days back, but before that I had to pass along a cool little piece of ramen web miscellania that I received from my homie-4-lyfe Ryan over at Same Hat:

From the Twitter of the inimitable James Murphy of LCD Soundsytem:

Jiro ramen? Who knew this existed? Amazing. 7 minutes ago via txt

Now imagine this guy holding THIS bowl.

Homeboy knows What Is Up!

For Those of You in New York...

2010-12-13T11:44:00.000-08:00

If you read my Big Update of a couple of posts back, you know that Ramenate has resituated himself in New York City, from whence posting will continue as usual. If you're lucky enough to live in the city so nice they named it twice, then you should definitely come check out an exciting ramen-themed event later this week.

This Thursday, December 16th, the Asia Society is hosting an event entitled (what else?) RAMEN FEVER. Both ramen and fever keep you warm in wintertime right? Beginning at 6:30, there will be a panel featuring my ramen blogger buddy Rameniac, New York ramen scene mainstay Shigeto Kamada (of Minca and Kambi), as well as several food editors and journalists. Following the panel will be a ramen cooking demonstration and tasting. I understand there will also be beer, which is always a plus. Though, apparently due to the beer, you have to be 21 to get in, so be aware and bring your ID.

Full info for the event, which is sponsored by the New York-Tokyo group, check out:

http://asiasociety.org/events-calendar/ramen-fever

and:

http://www.newyork-tokyo.com/wp/ramen/

I myself will not be presenting (this time around), but Ramenate will most certainly be in attendance, so if you can make it out say hi. Look for the 5'7" guy with glasses, sideburns, and a checked shirt.

Hope to see some of you there! For those who can't make it, I'll post up a report afterwards to look forward to. I'm always glad to see noodles get their due.

めん徳二代目つじ田味噌の章 (Mentoku Nidaime Tsujita Miso no Shô)

2010-11-30T13:44:00.000-08:00

Some bowls you just know are gonna be great. At last winter's Odaiba Ramen Event , Keizo and I tried out bowls from shops near and far, and the hands down winner was Nidaime Tsujita Miso no Shô. This miso ramen nearly knocked our socks off. And that lucky dogg has gone on to meet none other than Mr. Tsujita Takehiro himself, owner and head chef of a couple of shops located in central Tokyo famous for their tsukemen, and now miso.

This time around though, Ramen Adventurer Brian and I headed out to Ogawa-cho on a rainy day to get the real deal out of a non-plastic non-festival bowl. Could Tsujita's miso really be as bomb shliggity as I remembered it?

Answer? Yes. Look at this bowl. This is a thing of beauty. It is so beautiful. It is such a beautiful thing to behold. Let's see it from a different angle.

Break it down - smoothly sliced egg, ever-so-slightly gooey in the middle. Generous chunk of ginger. Dab of minced garlic. Diced pork chunks. A smattering of aonori seaweed. Fresh pickled bamboo the size of small timbers. A dusting of red pepper flakes. And of course, key to any true bowl of miso ramen - a hefty helping of bean sprouts wokked togeter with the soup and the miso paste.

I could go on and on about what different kinds of miso go into this complex blend. I could wax poetic about the thick and chewy noodles. I could tell you how the blend of sweet, salty, oil, and ginger makes you want to lick the bowl.

But I'm just gonna leave it at this is a damn delicious bowl of ramen. Along with Sapporo Junren and Kururi, perhaps the best (or at least my fave) bowl of miso anywhere in town.

Oh yeah, I got the "special rice" too. It had a sudachi citrus on it. It was OK. BUT MY GOD THE RAMEN! (I know this post may not be up to the dense prose that you're used to at Ramenate, but what can I say, this one struck me speechless).

信濃神麺烈士殉名 (Shinano Shinmen Resshi Junmei)

2010-11-27T12:34:00.000-08:00

You know this post is already a few months old because it begins with "one sunny Sunday", and it's been too damn long since we've had one of those. Anyhoo, one sunny Sunday, my buddy S and I set out with no greater purpose than to eat noodles and stroll around northeastern Tokyo with canned beers in hand. I'm happy to report that despite our lofty goals, we can report mission accomplished.

We started out at Shinano Shinmen Resshi Junmei, which is even more of a mouthful than the noodles in question, so let's just go with Resshi for short. With a name like "Righteous and Chivalrous Warrior - Noodles of God from the Land of Shinano", are they running a ramen shop or a poorly subtitled Kung Fu movie?

Of course, what holds up the upstanding warrior is nothing other than a "Bond of Hearts." As to the way that bond gets created, you'd have to ask an Edo period historian...but that's another story. In this case, Bond of Hearts is the name of one of a mover and shaker ramen group based in Tokyo and Nagano. King of Hearts Tsukada Kenji himself hails from mountainous central Nagano Prefecture, known prior to the Meiji Restoration as the domain of Shinano. Of the Heart's groups many shops, what makes Resshi stand out is its focus on ingredients from that very same land.

Inside, the shop is dark wood, with several local sake varieties on offer. I'm more of the type to take a beer with my ramen, but when you're serving a bowl as refined as Resshi's...

I couldn't tell you if the provenance of these komatsuna greens can be traced to Nagano Prefecture, but it was nice to have a healthy little free snack to start the meal off. Y'know, before sucking down the melted down fruits of the farm.

I think there may be a domestic Nagano ramen tradition, but it's not strong, and I couldn't tell you exactly what "Nagano Ramen" contains, though I think it involves a pretty standard mix of chicken, pork, seafood, and konbu seaweed. And of course your choice of Nagano's own home grown shôyu (soy sauce) or miso. S and I both went with the miso, which is a totally different beast from the better known Sapporo-style. Shinano miso is blonde, almost white in color, and very sweet without getting too pungent.

Well, readers, let me tell you. It works. I would trek over the mountains of Shinano, and maybe even break my own bond of hearts to eat this ramen. The noodles are thick, chewy, and a bit flat, and they work perfectly in the extra creamy soup, rich and complex. Great care went into the blending of this miso. The shôyu is actually the main menu item, and also gets high regards, but I can't but recommend the miso.

S seemed to like it as well. Unfortunately, we didn't have room for the house-made creme brulee dessert.

And just in case all that isn't enough to convince you, Resshi is part of the Nippon Ramen Association, an organization I have never heard of elsewhere, but is no doubt a group to be respected. After all, "they're cheering for you...with a bowl full of love," as the sticker says. Located right near the Kasuga subway station, you want to rush to Resshi!

がんこ一徹 (Ganko Ittetsu)

2010-11-24T11:19:00.000-08:00

Out with my fellow ramen rovers Keizo and Brian, we decide to stick close to home on one of our semi-regular ramen outings. The guys schlepped out to my (now sadly former) home in the semi-obscure northwestern Tokyo neighborhood of Araiyakushi. Right in front of my dearly missed local train station on the slowly moving Seibu line is a decent little ramen zone. There's a branch of the eminent (and soon to be written up) Ogikubo-style Maruchô, local stalwart Yakushi Ôban (deliciously slurped yet sadly unphotographed last year), the original locale of tomato ramen innovator RYOMA, and Ganko Ittetsu.

Wanting to try something new, we decided to go with Ganko, figuring it to be a branch of the publicity-shy franchise based in northwest Tokyo. The Ganko shops are quite legendary - check my old posts or the New York Times article for more info.

Ganko rarely (OK, never) does a ramen eater wrong, and this place had the telltale magazine recommendations, but...is it really a Ganko? There was no black sign, no signature bone, no grumpy old man behind the counter. Publicity seemed to indicate that the master had trained at the Eifukuchô Taishôken, so I'm not really sure how the Ganko got in there, save for some obscure lineage, a distant third cousin at best. Which is perhaps why the felt the need to add on the "Ittetsu", meaning "stubborn or hardheaded" to Ganko, which already means..."stubborn or hardheaded."

Sadly, the soup wasn't up to true Ganko standards. Keizo and Brian got what I think was the standard miso (sorry, this is where the blogging six months late bites you in the ass), which was, while not bad, a bit bland and nothing special. If you've got some bowls under your belt you should be able to tell at a glance that a bowl that looks like this is not destined for greatness.

My own bowl had a bit more punch since I maxed out the spice level. It made for a tasty bowl, but it really felt like eating Korean food rather than ramen, with spicy miso and sesame seeds. Check out that monster-sized bowl though! I guess that's where the Taishôken connection comes in - tub-sized portions.

The other factor that gave it that Korean flair were the noodles...which isn't a good thing, since in Korea "ramyun" means instant noodles, which this kinda resembled.

So, sorry Ittetsu, you may have filled our bellies, but you won't go down in the ramen annals. You may have tasted pretty OK, but with three better shops within a hundred meters, I can't even recommend you in good faith. Get grumpier with those noodles!

皇家龍鳳 (Kôka Ryûhô)

2010-11-18T10:56:00.000-08:00

Now, here's some ramen you don't get every day. You may remember my adviser, Professor T, he who dares to slurp tsukemen without so much as tucking in his Hermes tie, downing bowls without spilling a single drop. Professor T is well aware of my love for ramen (and this blog!), and we had long discussed getting another bowl together.

Well, Professor T, in his extreme generosity made one poor graduate student's day. After a brief discussion of 1920s language reform - an appetite stimulant, natch - he took me out to grab a bowl...at the Kôka Ryûhô (Imperial House of the Dragon and Phoenix) restaurant inside the extremely proper Rihga Royal Hotel.

Professor T had rightly pointed out (he never points things out wrongly, trust me) that despite all my ramenating and ramen eating, I was overlooking a very significant category of ramen, namely hotel Chinese food ramen. Every nice hotel in Tokyo worth its both proverbial and literal salt has a Chinese restaurant inside. Love for ramen just might transcend class. In any case, well-heeled wheeler-dealers need space to slurp away from the public eye.

And while those restaurants may specialize in banquet food and fine preparations (like this sea urchin gelee served with sashimi)...they always offer Japanese-Chinese staples too. This of course includes ramen, which was, you recall, called "Chûka Soba" (Chinese noodles) and imported as "Chinese" food around the turn of the last century.

So, after dusting off the above appetizers, a bit of light tempura vegetable fritters served orchid-side...

It was noodle time! We decided to do a taste test, starting with the Gomoku Yasai Soba (mixed vegetable noodles), featuring a veritable wok-full of fresh veggies atop a light yet flavorful shôyu (soy sauce) broth. Basically, this is your average street-cart style old school Tokyo ramen done up proper, rather than cooked in a vat in a parking lot, and the nuanced flavors and lack of oil made the difference.

But the star of the meal was no doubt the Fukahire Ramen - thin noodles in a rich creamy pork bone broth topped with a generous slice of tender shark fin. Mein gottes in himmel, this was a luscious delicacy. Imagine a tonkotsu broth made just a bit sweeter, but instead of roast pork, you get melt-in-your mouth ineffably soft whatever it is that shark fin is made of. It's a delicate taste hard to describe if you've never tried it.

Sorry Mom, sorry Jewish upbringing, sorry Nature.

And if that wasn't decadent enough, note the bright orange chunks of crab roe. This was truly a treat. Professor T and I savored every bite. Plus, when's the last time you had a tuxedoed waiter refill your cup of tea every time you took a sip while you slurped?

As much as I wanted to let that taste linger in my mouth for hours, I couldn't resist a bit of almond pudding to finish off the meal.

It's been months, but Professor T, if you're reading this, thanks again for a great lunch and for introducing me to a whole new side, nay genre, of ramen I'd never have discovered otherwise.

ラーメン二郎歌舞伎町店 (Ramen Jirô Kabukichô)

2010-11-15T10:38:00.002-08:00

With a backlog so big, what shops go up when is going to be a bit scattershot, and for some of these it's been the better part of a year since I ate them, so I'll do my best to keep my tasticular memories straight. So expect a lot of jumps in time and space from Ramenate from here on out. A good bowl should take you to another place, right? In any case, for my first bowl back in the blogging fold, I had better pick a good one, no?

It was the first days of summer, so what better way to enjoy the newly sweaty weather than a free outdoor concert? Performing for the people in the bike parking lot of Nakano station were Tokyo's favorite 60s freakout revivalists, Delicious Sweets.

Every town has their rotating group of nubile girls that wear day-glo miniskirt kimonos while dancing and performing skits to the tune of psych rock shakedowns. Oh, wait that's just Tokyo. Delicious Sweets are pretty ubiquitous, and if you hang out in western Tokyo chances are you'll accidentally catch them confusing passerby sooner or later.

In attendance at this particular gig were none other than international photographer superstar Moriyama Daido, discreetly snapping away...

...and a man with a pet parakeet.

But, not content to fill my Sunday evening with just one sixties-era throwback performance, I skedaddled a few stops down the line to Shinjuku to meet some pals to see the new play by radical underground theater guru Kara Jûrô. This year's play was entitled "Hyakuninchô", and told the story of - serendipity baby! - a ramen shop with a hidden secret that serves as the portal to a wild and nonsensical anti-gentrification adventure. After a couple of hours sitting cross-legged on straw mats inside Kara's iconic red tent and snacking on sake and dried squid, the crew was ready for some real ramen.

Fortunately for us, but unfortunately for our pants, the Kabukichô branch of the one, the only, the infamous Ramen Jirô was just around the block.

Despite the seemingly intense location of this Jirô amidst the host and hostess clubs of Japan's biggest nightlife district, this is actually one of the more user-friendly Jirô shops around. Water is provided, as is a list of toppings that true Jirô devotees should know by heart (extra veggies, garlic, lard, and "karame" soy essence, just for the record), and even...

Free tissues! The scandal. Does this even count as a true Jirô experience? For those of you unfamiliar with the girth of this unique shop, check out some of my previous Jirô visits.

The bowl too is relatively reasonable, lacking the sheer volume and height of noodles and veggies of some other shops.

That said, I ain't hating. This Jirô may be a bit more refined than some of its sister stores, but the balance is right on, the noodles are just as thick and chewy as they should be, and the garlic just sinks right into the strangely sweet yet oh so salty tonkotsu shôyu (soy sauce and pork bone) broth.

And I've never been known to complain about a kimchi option!

So when you're in Shinjuku and can't find a hunka hunka burnin' love so decide to settle for a hunka burnin' lard...

...or just are in the mood for food cooked with a two-by-four, Jirô Kabukichô will do you know wrong, though your gut might blame you later. Treat yourself to some ice cream and people watching for dessert!

死ぬまで麺を食うぞ (I'm Gonna Eat Noodles 'Til I Die)

2010-11-08T11:09:00.000-08:00

Muchachos y Muchachas,

You may have thought Ramenate was dead. You may have bemoaned it's passing. You may have forgotten about it completely. Alternately, you may not have even noticed that I haven't posted in about four months. There's been a good reason for my absence - I have taken my leave of Tokyo (for now), and have moved back to New York, where my time has been spent on academic endeavors, which hasn't left so much blog time. Then there's that thing about not having a regular internet connection.

But! This does not mean the end of Ramenate. As I mentioned a few months back, there are still literally dozens of bowls I downed and still intend to post, shops to be shared with the world.

But! The siren call of 1920s avant-garde Japanese periodicals (and the footnoting thereof) grows ever louder.

And Thus! You can expect a (perhaps somewhat sporadic) return of Ramenate, albeit following a new format.

Specifically! Rather than extended "dissertations" about the material circumstances surrounding each bowl, I'll be posting just a few pics with a brief description and assessment of the shop.

And so! There will still be the historical details, ridiculous digressions, moribund pop cultural references, and snarky graduate student prose you have come to expect from this blog - just in far more compact capsules.

Because! Shorter posts are better than no posts at all, no?

In addition! Posts will now include the address of the shop, and if I can figure out the relevant technology, a google map (and if I can't, a link to the Supleks Ramen Database that includes a google map).

And! For those of you who have written with questions, comments, asking to meet, asking for recommendations, or whatever else over the past few months and not received a reply, I truly extend sincere apologies. You probably think "i wrote that ramenate and he never wrote back - he is probably a dick who thinks he is too good to write back to noodle amateurs / friendly travelers such as myself." My life has been in Transpacific transition since approximately late July, and is just now settling into normalcy (read: I have a chair in my apartment), and all ramen related matters fell by the wayside. Again - my apologies, and if there's something you'd like to ask, please try writing again, or leaving a comment, and I'll do my best to get back to you.

Finally! I have resettled in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, New York City - one of the city's numerous Chinatowns. So, for those of you wondering if I'm going through noodle withdrawal, don't worry. It may be tough to get a good bowl of "ramen" in the states, but I'm just a couple blocks walk from plenty of freshly made "lamian!"

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

2010-06-06T23:18:00.000-07:00

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!

A Quick Check in...

2010-06-03T21:02:00.001-07:00

Hey all,

As you may have noticed, there has been a bit of a lack of postage in the Ramenate department of late. As much as I'd like to be crunching on delicious bamboo shoots in a bowl of ramen, it's crunch time on the next chapter of the big D - dissertation that is. So, the majority of my in front of the computer have been devoted to not noodles, but 1920s avant garde literature, which has meant less time to post. Don't worry, I've still been eating plenty of ramen (I had two bowls yesterday!), so there's a pretty big back log of great stuff that will be coming up in due time.

More 3 AM bowls in Kabukicho, ramen at a rural fire festival, Mexican wrestling masks, non-Mexican wrestling masks, overpowering fish aromas, shark fin ramen, Myanmar ramen, the oldest extant ramen in Tokyo, and plenty of pounds of pork bone soup pounded post-beer. Even peanut butter ramen (I am not making this up). You can look forward to all this and more from Ramenate. So, uh, add me to your RSS feed (I do not know what this means), and be sure and keep checking back, since I'll do my best to sneak in some posts when my brain isn't folding in on itself while reading prewar Dadaist poetry. In the mean time, get your daily noodle fix with the rest of my ramen eating crew and their blogs: Go Ramen, Ramen Adventures, and Rameniac. See y'all soon!

健太 (Kenta)

2010-05-09T23:41:00.000-07:00

Last time around, I wrote up Nagi, a Tokyo shop that serves a reimagined bowl of the classic Hakata ramen pork bone soup. A number of shops have tried similar tricks, not the least of which is the by now world famous Ippûdô, who transformed the lowly and smelly snack of thin noodles suspended in liquid pork marrow into a family friendly high dining concept.

If you read the blog with any regularity, you've probably picked up on the fact that I'm something of a Hakata ramen junkie. Ever since finding my first favorite bowl back at the eminently tasty and stinky Miyoshi in Kyoto, I've been on the quest to find the perfect bowl of this Fukuoka-style staple. This time up was Kenta, located north of Kôenji along the Waseda-dôri thoroughfare.

Now, I've never been to Fukuoka (a state of affairs I'm hoping to remedy in the near future...), but I get the sense that Kenta does a good job of recreating the vibe of that southern rock city. A big tub of stewing oden fish cakes, a couple of rock posters, plenty of booze, a TV set blaring comedy, and a shopkeeper that looks like he's on the lam from a past life as a bike punk make for that great Western Japan vibe not found often enough in Tokyo. I'm guessing that there's a crew of regulars who probably use the place as a watering hole, drinking until late and snacking on the surprisingly extensive menu.

Even for Hakata ramen, Kenta's bowl is stripped down in true street stall style. The shop claims roots (with photos to prove it) from training at the famous street stalls of Nakasu in Fukuoka city, and something about the feel of this bowl tells me that it's quite close to the "real deal." Which, interestingly enough, means a soup a bit thinner and lighter than many Tokyo-area ramen reimaginings; allegedly Nakasu-style soup isn't as heavy or creamy as it's next door neighbor, the more famous Nagahama ramen that I grew up on.

I decked out my bowl with beni shôga (red pickled ginger) and shook on some sesame seeds, but saw no sign of the ubiquitous garlic that you usually find at Hakata-style joints. When I asked the cook I got a gruff "don't have none" back. Maybe that's how they roll with the bowls in Nakasu? Kenta seems to be all about dedication to Hakata authenticity, so maybe I'm the one who doesn't know better.

I do know that I liked what I was eating, so hurriedly sucked it down and called for a kaedama, the noodle refill that's a Hakata trademark. Since the noodles are so thin and low in water content, they get soggy fast, so it's best to eat multiple small servings rather than get a big bowl. Hakata noodles should be cooked to order hard as the dickens, which means just a second of two in the water, and you best believe that Kenta does it just right, serving the noodles up nice and wiry.

I personally like my soup a bit stronger, but there was something unplaceable about this bowl, some kind of Kyushu soul that most other joints around town don't have. I think my top bowls still go to Hitotsubo in Shinjuku and Goten in Sendagaya, but if you're looking for a really real bowl of Nakasu ramen, look no further than Kenta. It gets the stamp of approval from the Hakatatians in exile that i know here in Tokyo as well.

**Several readers recently asked - why don't you give the addresses for the shops you write up so I can actually find them? The answer to this extremely good question is...I don't have a good answer. I literally have no excuse for not having done exactly that from the beginning, and am baffled at how I overlooked such a seemingly simple fact. It'll take a while before I get the chance to go back and populate the addresses on the old posts, but from here on out, expect addresses at the bottom of each post. And use those addresses to find the shops and let me know how you like them!

健太 Kenta: 東京都杉並区高円寺北3-43-10 Suginami-ku Kôenji-kita 3-43-10. (To find the place, plug the address into Google maps, or just click it for a link to the Supleks Ramen Database page that includes a map).

ラーメン道楽 (Ramen Dôraku)

2010-05-09T21:59:00.000-07:00

The cherry blossoms were just starting to bloom as winter at last began its slow retreat. (Yep, I'm way behind on posts again). Check out these psychedelic colors - no digital manipulation here, that moss really is that neon green!

Sakura time is definitely associated with fun for the new season - warm weather, outdoor drunkenness, and generally enjoying of life after the long cold season. So it was only fitting that my friend Y and I decided to grab our next bowl at Ramen Dôraku ("road to pleasure") in Yoyogi.

Located on a somewhat lonely corner on a distant block among the tall buildings of West Shinjuku, Dôraku has been rocking ramen for a full 25 years. Another favorite pick of the always estimable critic Takahashi Jôji, Dôraku has paid its dues since well before the ramen boom.

I've recently been trying to search out tasty shops that have been around the block, rather than just trendy new places, but it can be hard to tell which of the faded old-school awnings house good bowls and which are just mediocre. But there's no way to find out except for hitting the streets hungry to try them out - you can't just sit by the rotary phone waiting for the ramen gods to call.

Inside, Dôraku is simple and no frills, with a spacious steel counter and little else. A good deal of the customers seemed to be regulars which isn't surprising - I'll bet a lot of the salarymen who work in the area make this a standard stop on their lunch rotations. The radio chattered away while the aging master and his wife puttered around with pride in their work.

The star menu item at Dôraku is the negi ramen - a bowl of old-fashioned stripped down tonkotsu shôyu (pork bone and soy broth) topped with a heaping mound of sliced onions. There was a giant plastic bin the size of an industrial strength trash can in the corner used for the sole purpose of soaking the onions before poaching them in soy sauce.

Despite having a satisfying and rich flavor, Dôraku's ramen isn't too oily or salty. The model is what might be called Tokyo tonkotsu - strong pork broth dyed brown with soy and plenty of lard; a far cry away from the bone white Hakata broth, it's like a scaled down Ramen Jirô and shares affinities with Yokohama-style ie-kei ramen...

...an impression made stronger by the fact that chili paste and raw garlic are provided tableside, just as with Yokohama ramen. Ie-kei most likely began as a modification of a style like this - fatty soup being served at a time when ramen still generally meant old-fashioned shôyu and little else. While not mind or tongue altering, Dôraku serves up an eminently eatable bowl that's a hold over from another era - let's hope it lives to see another 25 years.

道楽 Dôraku 東京都渋谷区代々木3-38-11 富士見マンション201号 Shibuya-ku Yoyogi 3-38-11 Fujimi Mansion No. 201

凪「渋谷店」(Nagi [Shibuya Branch])

2010-04-22T03:06:00.000-07:00

I'm certainly banging down bowls a lot faster than I can post them up, and I'm doing my best to work through the now substantial backlog. Which brings us to this blast from the past. A few of you may have *cough cough* caught the blog in the New York Times epic ramen article a little ways back. Though I was unfortunate enough to be out of town when the Frugal Traveler Matt Gross rolled through, I did have the opportunity to escort around the story's photographer Basil Childers to snap some pics and eat some bowl.

Ramen Adventurer Brian led Basil and I to one of his regular ramen jams, Nagi, located on an obscure corner in Shibuya. I had already eaten one bowl for lunch and I would go on to enjoy Bassanova's green curry ramen that night for dinner, but someone had to eat the ramen these guys were photographing, so I took one for the team.

Nagi's is one of the more interesting ramen stories around town, and a testament to hard work and good taste. Starting out doing "aida kari" - running a restaurant a few hours a week borrowing a friend's store front, the Nagi team, led by Ikuta Satoshi worked their way to several of their own shops, a spot in the Tachikawa Ramen Square, and general ramen world reknown, becoming one of the more recognizable names on the Tokyo scene. For the full story, check out my post on Nagi's branch in Shinjuku Golden Gai.

One of the cool things about Nagi is that each shop has a different soup concept and a different vibe - the Shinjuku locale is fishy Aomori ramen-influenced soy stock packed with sardines, and the Shibuya shop serves something resembling a straightforward Hakata tonkotsu (pork marrow) broth. The shop is really more of a restaurant, with tables to sit and kick it at, a decent alcohol menu, and a friendly and hip staff.

It's also home to the biggest, raddest most impressive ramen-related library I've ever seen. Dozens if not hundreds of books and guides are on the shelf; if it's in print and it's about ramen, chances are you'll find it here. I need to get back to Nagi just to do research!

Brian remembers the days when Nagi served a new and different experimental ramen nearly every day, and so often laments their reduction of the menu to the simple bowl they now serve. This was my first to Nagi, so I was more than satisfied with their strong yet smooth rendition of my own number one ramen genre, the Kyushu style thin noodle pure tonkotsu soup. While not quite as raw (and certainly not as smelly) as many "proper" Hakata-style joints around town, Nagi delivers on taste, and I give it a hearty thumbs up, as did the Times - the shop is rightly deserving of its reputation.

旅の途中 (Tabi no Tochû)

2010-04-20T02:47:00.000-07:00

Life is a journey that's hopefully as long as a ramen noodle, and sometimes you need to take a little rest along the way. So while you've got your legs kicked up, why not put your head down and take a slurp? You could find a lot worse places to do just that than Tabi no Tochû - "A Stop Along the Way", located on a side street in South Kôenji.

The solo-flying shop master has a favorite journeyman of his own, none other than the wandering minstrel Bob Dylan. The shop BGM is all Dylan, all the time, so besides ramen fans, any hungry followers of a one Robert Zimmerman should swing by and try a bowl here. Don't think twice, it's alright, just open up that door.

Keizo and I wandered in one lazy morning, but unlike a character in a Dylan ballad, didn't meet any brown-haired damsels, only the taciturn but friendly cook and a few fellow travelers on the road to noodle satisfaction. Between the music, the decorations, and the demeanor, the shop master's done a nice job making Tabi no Tochû a relaxing place to have a bowl.

With only 7 or so seats in a boxy little room, there's not much to do but take your time and watch the cook take his time preparing each bowl from scratch in the tiny kitchen filled with tiny pots.

While you wait, you can snack on a few stems of greens provided for free to each customer. No complaints there. Ain't got no quarrel with free veggies.

In addition to the standard menu of shôyu (soy sauce) ramen, shio (salt) ramen, and tsukemen (dipping noodles), Tabi no Tochû has a rotating monthly menu of in-season appetizers and special noodles. In March, snap peas were on offer, served with some coarse grain salt and plum paste. Who knew a visit to a ramen shop could be so healthy?

Keizo got the standard shôyu, which was very light, but with lots of complex flavors. I couldn't tell you just what ingredients go into the soup, but a lot of thought went into this bowl. 900 yen is a bit pricy for a bowl of noodles, but how often does 9 bucks get you a meal of slow food prepared from scratch? I tried a sip and savored the flavors expanding through my mouth.

Bob Dylan isn't know to be the most observant Jew, and sorry Bubbie, neither am I. I decided to go with the monthly special bowl of "milk soup ramen" - a carbonara creation made with plenty of dairy, parmesan cheese, cauliflower, parsley, white mushrooms, and bacon. Being the pseudo-vegetarian that I am, I ordered no bacon, but the cook told me that he had to leave the bacon in to properly flavor the soup, so he just decreased the portion (which Keizo happily munched down). Definite points for splitting the uprights between catering to customers and properly protecting the flavor.

The milk soup noodles were eminently tasty, if resembling a gourmet bowl of pasta as least as much as a bowl of ramen. The soup was thick, more of a sauce, but creamy (duh) and delicious - I'd be happy to get this dish at any good Italian restaurant. The mushrooms and cauliflower added an earthy note (and I don't even like mushrooms!), and the soup never felt overly cloying or fatty. The noodles were nice and stretchy, with lots of give and chew.

Good to the very last drop, I didn't even need any bread to sop up the soup. To be fair, though, I think I liked Keizo's even better; a good carbonara is certainly impressive, but there's nothing quite like a bowl of simple ramen crafted so thoughtfully. I don't know what Lily, Rosemary, the Jack of Hearts (or Big Jim, for that matter) might think of Tabi no Tochû's ramen, but I'm planning on going back.

So, next time you're in Kôenji, think about making Tabi no Tochû a stop along your own journey. Provided, that is, that you're OK with having a hundred sets of Bob Dylan eyes staring back at you while you use the bathroom.

屯ちん (Tonchin)

2010-04-18T02:37:00.000-07:00

I feel like I've put up a number of posts recently that begin something like "So I was eating ramen in Kabukicho again, but don't get the wrong idea, it was the middle of the afternoon..." This is another Kabukicho bowl, and this one was eaten at a properly Kabukicho-appropriate time...something like 3 AM.

It had been another late night out drinking in Golden Gai, and you wouldn't believe how time flies when an off-duty wrestling referee with crooked teeth is explaining the tricks of the trade. Not wanting to end up in a sleeper hold on the street, I decided that a quick bowl would be in order to put the rumbles in my stomach down for the count and make sure I didn't wake up with a wicked hangover.

Right along one of the neighborhood's back boulevards, Tonchin occupies a prominent place on the promenade of pimps, pushers, playboys, Yakuza, and uh, camera-toting Taiwanese tourists that is Kabukicho. I had heard good things about Tonchin from rockabilly ramen critic Takahashi Jôji, as well as a couple of friends and acquaintances, and I had been meaning to try it for a while, but like with Kyushu Ramen down the block, had been saving it for one of those late nights.

I tried snapping a couple shots of the inside of the shop, but I'm gonna be honest, they all came out too blurry to use. They seemed clear at the time...surprise, surprise. Nonetheless, by dint of not having my head down on the counter, I was still doing better than plenty of the other patrons. Tonchin keeps it clean and professional, but the same probably can't be said for the motley crew of bouffants that find their way in here at 3 AM - mostly drunken salarymen and assorted sex industry errand boys and girls. They come for this - Tonchin's Tokyo Tonkotsu.

When you've got the beer munchies, nothing hits the fat quite like a bowl full of creamy spots...or is it the other way around? This creamy but smooth broth is loaded with suspended fat, which probably isn't too good for the body, but then again, neither is finding yourself in Kabukicho at 3 in the morning. Tonchin works off a tonkotsu (pork bone soup) model with plenty of salty soy essence, rather than Hakata or Kumamoto style purer pork taste.

This Tokyo tonkotsu (which is really a tonkotsu shôyu for those keeping track) is also kissin' cousins with Yokohama ie-kei ramen, as here you'll find side servings of garlic and two kinds of chili oil. But of course, this isn't Yokohama, so don't go looking for the trademark three slices of nori seaweed - you'll only find two.

Tonchin's noodles are also surprisingly excellent - fat, curly, and a bit flat. Tonchin, which also has a branch in Ikebukuro, serves only jika seimen - their own brand of specially made house noodles. You can't go wrong with tasty noodles from factories like Mikawaya Seimen or Kaikarô, but jika seimen almost always taste that much fresher.

Tonchin really hit the spot, and I'm pretty sure that it'd be (almost) as good sober. The bowl here is pretty close to what my initial platonic ideal of ramen was years back - hearty, creamy, satisfying, begging to be wolfed down. I love carefully sampling all the new developments and subtle soups the ramen world has to offer, but sometimes a back to basics bowl is best. Just be sure not to get snagged by the offers for massages that fly your way as soon as you step out the door.

竹虎 (Taketora)

2010-04-16T02:25:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure why so many ramen shops have the character for tiger in the name - there's Menya Musashi Takatora, Kotatsu, and a host of others around town. Eating a lot of ramen is in no danger of bestowing anyone with any alacrity or ferocity. Maybe the stripes sorta look like noodles?

This time around we have Taketora, the "tiger in the bamboo." Nope, sorry, I couldn't tell you if it's crouching or not. In this case, we might read "tiger" as a metaphor for ramen, and "bamboo" as a metaphor for the dense thicket of cabaret clubs in central Kabukicho, ground zero for "evening entertainment" in Tokyo.

Fortunately, unlike many of its neighbors, this tiger is awake during daylight hours. I feel like Kabukicho is one of the great unsung ramen zones of Tokyo - sure it's plenty sketchy at night and weirdly dead while the sun is out, but all those denizens of the dark have to eat, and they seem to choose ramen with some frequency. There's a branch of Jirô, the great Hitotsubo, the tasty Tonchin (review coming soon), and plenty of other serviceable joints.

On this particular day, I shared Taketora with a gaggle of young and fresh-faced big haired hosts out on their lunch break - well-coiffed dudes designated with the task of relieving females of their cash with coy looks and overpriced champagne. To be more precise though, I wasn't really sharing the space with these dudes at all, since behind the counter there are a few "private rooms", because nothing says romancing a professional like a tete-a-tete over ramen, right?

I wasn't prepared to give Taketora second shrift, and in fact I'd walked by a number of times without noticing it - in general photo menus are a bad sign when searching for good ramen. But the meal started out right, with a nice warm towel handed to me by a pretty girl with a bad dye job - what do you think this is, NOT Kabukicho? Hot towels and pretty girls with bad jobs are literally what keeps this town running.

It was good notices from one of my favorite ramen critics, the equally well-coiffed Takahashi Jôji that convinced me to give Taketora a try; the shop's only been open a year and change, but I've yet to be led astray by a Takahashi rec.

Next up was a small dish of fried noodles to snack on while waiting. Sâbisu sâbisu! Or, for the non-Japanese speakers reading the blog, "service, service!" Taketora is one of those new-fangled "ramen dining" restaurants, so they offer lots of little bonuses to give you a feel-good experience, including a free upgrade to large size and a free topping at lunch time. But all that's moot if the ramen is no good, right?

Fortunately, Taketora's bowl is quite tasty, a new school shôyu (soy sauce) soup that manages to avoid resorting to the cookie cutter post-tsukemen boom mildly fishy mode. Rather, the broth is a blend of quite strong but not overly oily chicken and pork soup with a shôyu taste at once deep, light, and almost sweet. It's important for soy-based shops to have a good shôyu supplier, and Taketora seems to have found one I haven't tasted before. I dug it like I was digging the decent jazz on the stereo. Big, chunky and flavorful bamboo hunks, an extra egg-half, and sippable soup. I wonder what the hungry hosts in the next room thought?

Taketora's noodles are somewhat unusual for ramen of it's type - rather than go with the medium thick straightish, whiteish noodles in vogue with new school shôyu, Taketora uses very yellow, curly noodles made with raw egg, not dissimilar from those you might find in a bowl of Sapporo ramen. They stayed chewy and firm all the way through the (generously sized) bowl, so I think some of the yellow color might also be due to a high kansui (alkali water) content.

"Are you familiar with tiger oil?" the waiter asked me. Umm, is this some kind of Chinese medicine sex vitality thing? Far from it, the shop's trademark "tiger oil" comes free alongside your bowl, and is a tangy but not overpowering garlic oil to drizzle on top. Nothing mind-blowing, but it's nice to mix it up halfway through. This was a solid bowl, and I found myself slurping down to the dregs. You could do a lot worse than bagging this tiger when bush hunting (oh god!) in Kabukicho...

一竜 (Ichiryû)

2010-04-14T00:24:00.000-07:00

Sitting and hanging out with Keizo at Bassanova (see below), we started talking about (what else?) ramen. It turns out that shop manager Komuro-san used to work two doors down at neighboring Ichiryû, so full as I may have been off ramen, rice, and couple of beers, i found myself hankering to give that shop a shot too. "Dude, I'm pretty full...I know I'll regret it later." I protested. "Man, just shut up and go eat it," Keizo countered. Don't try and argue with a man who eats two bowls a day.

Well, it doesn't take too much convincing to get me to try out a bowl of Hakata ramen. That milky, creamy pork marrow soup and those thin noodles are at the roots of my ramen obsession, and I'm still on my quest to find the best bowl in Tokyo. Ichiryû just happens to be the Tokyo branch of one of the all-time favorites of none other than Rameniac, who is definitely a dude who knows his way around Hakata ramen.

Ichiryû claims to have first started serving way back in 1955 (wowzerz!), permanently affixing their outdoor stall along the riverbank in 1974 in the Nakasu area of Fukuoka, ground zero for Hakata ramen. I've never been to Fukuoka (...yet!), but I've heard that down there ramen is still very much tied to its roots as a street food snack, and Ichiryû is one of the highest regarded street stalls along the river.

Well, maybe my expectations were just a bit too high. While certainly serviceable, nothing really seemed special to me about my bowl at Ichiryû. Even given that Nakasu-style ramen tends to be a bit thinner and lighter than ramen served across the way in the Nagahama area, the soup tasted a bit weak to me.

I tricked out the bowl in proper fashion with red pickled ginger, takana mustard greens, garlic, and sesame, but the taste just never came together with the whirlwind that I'm looking for when I gruzzle my Hakata ramen. I later found out that I happened to eat there on a day when Kawagoe-san, the shop master, wasn't around, so I think I need to try it again when his expert hands are preparing the soup. The Ichiryû team and the crew at Bassanova are buddies, so I'm sure I'll find myself back here at some point. See you again Ichiryû, I want you to show me everything you got!

BASSANOVA! BASSANOVA!

2010-04-12T00:12:00.000-07:00

Passover just passed us by, so maybe it would be an appropriate time to modify one of the age-old questions associated with the matzah party. Ask not "why is this night different from all other nights", but "how is this Bassanova bowl different from all other Bassanova bowls?"

I've eaten at Bassanova plenty of times at this point, but this time was different. This is the first bowl I had at Bassanova since my good buddy Keizo started working there! I first met my fellow ramen bloggers Keizo and Brian just about a year ago, and the very first bowl we ate together was at Bassanova. Little could I have known that only a number of months later I'd still be sitting at that same counter...while Keizo stood behind it, prepping my ramen!

After interning at Ivan Ramen, Keizo recently moved down the road to Bassanova. Another great story of a valued customer learning the tricks of the trade, Keizo is now literally living out his dream at his favorite ramen shop in the world. When head cook Harada-san had to head home to Fukuoka, he tapped Keizo to take over the shop. It brings me great happines to see my buddy doing exactly what he wants to do. And it doesn't hurt that Bassanova's ramen rocks!

The other thing that makes this Bassanova bowl different is that every other time I've eaten there I've always ordered the spicy Thai-style green curry ramen, but this time I opted for the even more fusion-y Tom Yum ramen, which is allllllmost as tasty, but I have to give my personal edge to the green curry, since it's just a bit spicier and I'm a sucker for thick noodles. But make no mistake, this is a great bowl you're not gonna find anywhere else in the city...or the world, for that matter.

The other nice thing about having a buddy behind the counter is being able to hang out and have a few beers, chat a bit, read some comics, and order a tasty snack of rice topped with gried onions, seaweed and a nice gooey egg. It doesn't hurt that Bassanova keeps a good soundtrack going all night. Even if I wasn't biased, I'd still tell you not to miss Bassanova - it's a delicious, unique shop with a great vibe and great noodles. Be sure and say hi to Keizo if...I mean WHEN you go!

哲 (TETSU)

2010-04-09T15:24:00.000-07:00

Let it be known far and wide that TETSU is one of thee premier tsukemen (dipping noodle) joints about town. Along with the veritable (and yet unvisited by me) imperial noodle powerhouse Rokurinsha, TETSU is widely reknowned as one of the top spots in Tokyo to get your dip on. The tsukemen boom that has resulted in near identical dipping noodle dishes at nearly every shop in the metropolis, but TETSU was one of the first and best of the 21st century tsukemenification movement, and the difference between the TETS and the rest is still clear.

The original TETSU location is located in the Sendagi area, a quiet neighborhood not far from Ueno in northeastern Tokyo. It had long been on my hit list, but I had yet to bother braving the inevitable hour plus wait for my noodles. So, if you want a rundown on the original locale, be sure and check out Brian's post of a few months back. Since seizing success, TETSU has become a fixture in ramen roads and theme parks, and numerous venues offer these famous noodles, including the Shinagawa Shinatatsu zone, and my own neighborhood underground ramen food court, Kôenji Ramen Yokochô.

Kôenji Yokochô hosts some pretty stellar shops, like Môko Tanmen Nakamoto and Daiki, in addition to TETSU. Though the lines aren't as bad as the original locale, a wait is still certain, so it's not a spot for a quick lunch.

The most popular dish at TETSU is the "atsumori", which is standard tsukemen with the noodles served hot, rather than chilled. TETSU takes it a step further, leaving the noodles simmering in a light thin broth made of katsuo (bonito) stock, which not only keeps the noodles warm but adds another layer of flavor prior to dipping.

The soup, while at the deepest level based on the classic Taishôken tsukemen model of thick, vaguely fishy stock with a balance of sweet, salty, and vinegary, is it's own warthog. But yknow, much more delicious than a warthog. It's that much creamier, spicier, complexerer, and betterer than most likely literally any other tsukemen dipping brew I've ever tasted. And if you order the spicy dish like I did then it's that much spicier too. Just when I thought that every tsukemen was the same, TETSU comes along to do the same thing, just much much better.

After all, the kanji for TETSU may mean "philosophical knowledge" but the name is a homonym for "iron" and general badassery:

Like Tetsuo from AKIRA (remember him?)!

and of course TETSUJIN-28 (better known as Gigantor to US audiences)!

and then there's Tetsuo the Iron Man. None of whom are dudes to be messed with. Just like TETSU's noodles.

Lest I forget, I should also mention the total al dente perfection of the noodles, which are so so thick, so so curly, and so so good. I don't know if they are also coming from the famous Kaikarô factory in Asakusa, but they're at least as good. If you like thick noodles, then these are absolutely not to be missed.

Then there's the table side fried garlic chips to make it all even deliciouserer.

While I was gruzzling down on that with great gusto, my buddy A had ordered the abura soba, the soupless noodles. Abura soba translates as "oil noodles", which usually just means a bit of thick flavor essence to blend at the bottom of the bowl, but at TETSU, they take their oil seriously:

Yep, that's plenty of lard in oil with a raw egg tossed in for good measure. To be honest, as big of a hit as the tsukemen was, these boys fell flat. Abura soba shouldn't actually be all that oily, and should be packed with flavor, while these were almost too light in taste and a bit overly greasy. My homey A was not a fan, and I felt bad for having lead him astray.

There is one more thing about eating at TETSU, a thing which probably played a large part in getting the shop remembered as the great boom took flight. Take a gander at your cartoon guide (is his name TETSU?) and...

...order a hot rock. Yep, call for that yaki-ishi, the baked stone. A lot of people complain that tsukemen gets lukewarm, and you can count Ramenate in that number. But when you've got a red hot rock handy...

You can dip it in the soup to warm it right back up. Just be sure you've already diluted the broth down a bit with the tableside pitcher so as not to scorch the soup. I'm not a big fan of drinking down tsukemen broth, but if you haven't got the impression yet that TETSU is a bit of an exception, then I don't know what to tell you, dood. I can't say whether or not there's a great gap between this TETSU and the original, but I'd tell anyone travelling to Tokyo that if you want tsukemen this is a purty fab option.

福山らーめんとんとん (Fukuyama Ramen Tonton)

2010-04-07T14:40:00.000-07:00

I'm guessing that a lot of y'all have known my blog primarily as Ramenate, but those who have been around for a little bit know that it started out as Waseda Ramen, my quest to eat at all of the 100 or so ramen shops within spitting distance of Waseda University. Eventually I moved out of the 'hood and started casting my noodle net a bit wider, but I still frequently find myself in my previous precincts, usually on trips to the library for research. And when I do head Wasedawards, you better believe my eye roves around to check and see what's new on the local noodle scene.

This time around, I was shocked and surprised to discover that local stalwart RYOMA is no longer. For those of you still wanting to try out their famous tomato and cheese shio ramen, the Arai Yakushi original branch is still very much still in business, but the Waseda storefront is no longer, having been recently replaced with newcomer Fukuyama Ramen Tonton.

To be honest, I can't really wrap my head around what's happening with Fukuyama ramen. There is an obscure regional style known as Fukuyama ramen, hailing from Hiroshima prefecture with a strong shôyu (soy sauce) base made with chicken stock, not dissimilar to neighboring Onomichi ramen. But this doesn't seem to be that. Rather, the team at Tonton claims that the takana topping of spicy pickled mustard greens found their way onto Kyushu-style tonkotsu pork bone ramen before making a round trip to Hakata. Huh?

In any case, the resulting bowl is essentially indistinguishable from Hakata style ramen - a whitish creamy pork soup (with perhaps a bit of chicken stock added in this case) filled out with extra thin, extra firm, extra straight noodles.

Pretty bare bones, but trick it out with the standard setting of pickled red ginger, ground sesame, raw garlic, and of course the trademark takana, and you'll be all set to go. Tasty for sure, but nothing above and beyond any of the other more or less standard Hakata-style joints around town. The takana were, however, above average.

Tasty enough that after I gruzzed it down...

...I got my de rigeur kaedama (noodle refill) to be sure and get myself way too full for the rest of the day. It's when I don't even want an extra noodle helping that a tonkotsu place is in trouble, so in the final analysis, Fukuyama Ramen Tonton gets the worthy nod, even if it's nothing spectacular. You could do a lot worse than a decent bowl of Hakata...er, Fukuyama ramen, no matter what the neighborhood.

勝丸 (Katsumaru)

2010-04-05T14:14:00.000-07:00

Now this is as classic of a ramen success story as you can get. Gotô Katsuhiko grew up in the deep north of Japan, in Kita-Tsugaru county, Aomori prefecture, way way up at the tippy tip top of the main island of Honshû. Hailing from the same area is one of my favorite Japanese musicians, the way out there folk singer Mikami Kan, so let's set up a soundtrack of Mikami's classic track "Village of Tokyo, Tsugaru County, Aomori Prefecture." (Apologies to any sensitive souls who take offense at the background art by Saeki Toshio)

Gotô's ramen is just as deep, raw, soulful, and heavy as Mikami's tunes, and it's no wonder - plenty of sweat, tears, and taxi grease went into its making. Like lots of young people in the late 1960s, Gotô fled the mountainous backwaters of rural Japan to start life anew in Tokyo. Hoping to someday open a ramen shop in Tokyo, he spent four years driving a cab, eating at as many shops as possible between shifts.

Eventually, in 1971, Gotô realized his dream, opening Katsumaru as a portable yatai stall run out of the back of a light truck. He rocked the straight up ramen stall lifestyle for 13 full years, until finally opening the first brick and mortar location of Katsumaru in the Shirokane neighborhood in 1984.

In 1991, the shop moved down the road from Shirokane to Meguro, where the head shop still stands, an unassuming temple of delicious noodles that it's easy to walk by without noticing, which is precisely what Keizo and I did before we found it.

We got the tip off about Katsumaru from Takahashi Jôji, celeb and aging rockabilly dude turned ramen critic. His book, Takahashi Jôji's Ramen Road, is one of the best and most fun to read ramen guides out there. So when Takahashi identified Katsumaru as his all time number one shop, the roots of his ramen love, we knew we had to go.

Inside, the shop is low key, and spacious with a neighbohood vibe and assorted 60s and 70s era knickknacks placed around the room. Gotô himself is too busy running the business end of things these days to cook the noodles himself, but he's got a friendly older guy running the shop who was happy to chat it up. Katsumaru has expanded from the back of a truck to a chain with shops all over Tokyo, in addition to locales in various ramen streets and theme parks around the country. But the Meguro shop is the original, devoted to preserving the old school flavor.

And what an old school flavor it is! The shôyu (soy sauce) soup is thin but oh so rich, like a pumped up version of old fashioned street stall ramen, which is exactly what it is. Gotô's ramen has probably changed little since he first devised it, drawing from his taxi driver days with a bit of help from the strong sardines that go into his hometown Aomori ramen. This is "deep" shôyu flavor that blows almost anything else out of the bowl, and is downright delicious.

The noodles are home made, and a bit flatter than your average slurp. They're chewy and stretchy, but unlike some yatai style noodles, don't get soft or soggy at all. Extremely excellent. The bowl is the very picture of the platonic ramen ideal, rounded out with pink and white naruto fish cake, a slice of nori seaweed, and a bit of onions and bamboo sprouts. And let's not forget a healthy shake of loose lard across the top.

Then there's the egg, perhaps the best I've ever eaten, just bursting with poached soy flavor.

This soup was good to the very, very last drop. As much as I loved it, Keizo loved it even more, deeming it damn near his perfect bowl of ramen. THIS is the type of shop I want to discover more of. No flash, no gimmick, no pretention, serving soup that becomes unique through it's sheer excellence alone. Send me your tips for your favorite shops that have been around the block!

十番 (Jûban)

2010-04-03T16:25:00.000-07:00

After a number of decidedly new school bowls, I wanted to revisit some ramen roots. Not far from Higashi-Nakano station is Jûban, one of the oldest and best loved shops in the area.

Jûban has been around since 1956, which makes it almost as old as the 70 year old woman in shades and blue leopard stripe pants and puffing on a cigarette. That's Nakano for you.

Jûban is representative of an older breed of ramen shop - the neighborhood Chinese restaurant with a noodle counter. I recently read a short feature on Jûban with a brief Q and A with the shop master, Mitamura Kôji: Q: What's at the heart of a good bowl of noodles? A: Simpleness. Q: Where did you learn how to cook ramen? A: From the previous owner of Jûban. Q: What other ramen shops do you like? None in particular. And there you go.

It's a nice neighborhood vibe inside, with a mix of pink-haired hip young couples, old men sharing tables and chatting, and hungry salarymen. Express trains pass by Higashi-Nakano, so like at most local stations, things move a little bit slower.

Though Jûban offers a full list of Japanese-Chinese dishes like crab omlettes, liver and leek stir fry, and wonton noodles, the famous dish here is tanmen, and rightfully so. Meaning simply "soup noodles" in Chinese, tanmen is the original shio (salt) ramen, featuring a thin Chinese-style white chickeny broth topped with a generous helping of vegetables wokked with lard and sesame oil. Also try tapping on some of the house chili paste.

While many tanmen places use very thin, stretchy noodles, Jûbans are fat, homemade, chewy, and delicious. And it's always good to get your veggies, even if that just means onions, bok choy, and sliced carrots. We may be getting on to spring, but this is the perfect food for a cold winter day. It may lack the added note of lamb soup like at Inaho, but Jûban racks up one of the best tanmen bowls in town. It's simple, but you'll find yourself slurping to the end.

蒙古タンメン中本[新宿店] (Môko Tanmen Nakamoto [Shinjuku Branch])

2010-04-01T14:42:00.000-07:00

In general, I don't revist too many of the shops on the Tokyo ramen hit list. As much as I love many of them, there are just too many other tempting places I want to go, and life is too short to keep eating the same bowl over and over. I have much respect for those who are devoted to a few shops, by what can I say, I have itchy feet and a wandering tongue.

But some shops are worthy of revists, and even downright obsession. Môko Tanmen Nakamoto is one of those shops. Famed as one of the spiciest bowls in Tokyo (at least, spicies on this side of the universe), it was tasty enough for regular customer Shirane Makoto (picture above) to quit his day job and become head cook when the original master retired decades ago. More recently, I received word from reader Stanklez that she was flying across the world for the sole purpose of eating at Nakamoto.

What could inspire such devotion? For the full back story on Nakamoto, check my old post on a visit to the Ikebukuro shop; but suffice to say that their miso ramen laced with pounds of chilis is addictive. After a couple beers in Shinjuku, Keizo and I both got the craving and hurried over to take our place among the slurping salaried masses.

Head cook Shirane likes to cultivate a tough guy image (the shop is called "Mongolian Noodle Soup" after all...), and that includes prominently displaying the signatures of all the various babes that have eaten his noodles. As it were. Seeing TV talent and model Megumi's name up on the wall brought back some old college study abroad memories. Too bad I didn't happen to be eating at Nakamoto on May 12th, 2001 when she signed her placard.

Nakamoto's bowls are ranked on a spiciness scale of zero to ten, and Keizo split down the middle for the most popular item on the menu, the store's titular menu item, the Môko tanmen, which is the base miso soup with a thin layer of chili oil, plenty of stir fried veggies, an egg, and hiding behind the onions, a couple of slabs of mapo tofu. That ranks a 5 on the heatometer.

But I'm a masochist. I ordered the plain noodles.

Plain noodles with uber-spicy dipping broth. Coming in at ten full stars, the "hiyashi miso" translates as "chilled miso", but is scorching hot - chilled is Nakamoto's way of designating tsukemen dipping noodles with soup on the side. Last time I ate at Nakamoto, I got the Hokkyoku (North Pole) ramen, which scores a nine, but what the hell, I had a few beers in me, and the gusto cried out to be gone for.

Verily, this is a spicy bowl of tsukemen. Not dissimilar to the spicy miso at Waseda's Takagiya, but even more potent, this one was enough to make Ramenate choke. And love every second of it. If you like spicy food, this one is truly not to be missed. I often complain about tsukemen always being the same, but Nakamoto's hiyashi miso is in a category of it's own.

And if it gets to be too hot, you can cool off with a dip in the sea, or at least the ocean-themed bathroom. After this, my second trip to Nakamoto, it's officially solidified it's place as one of my favorite shops in town. Even if you can't handle the hot stuff, they have a range of much more mild dishes that I'm sure are just as good. And who knows, maybe you'll run into the next generation's Megumi?

はやしまる (Hayashimaru)

2010-03-30T14:21:00.000-07:00

Not a whole lot to tell this time around. I had heard good things about Hayashimaru, a relatively new shop that opened in the last year or two in an alley in North Koenji. Despite being such a major hangout zone (or perhaps precisely because of it?) Koenji is a bit starved for good ramen, or at least was until the recent opening of the Koenji Ramen Street beneath the station.

Tucked away off one of the main shopping drags a few minutes north of the station, Hayashimaru is a popular spot, with a short line manifesting itself by lunch time. The crowd was almost impressively well-balanced, with a few older people, a few younger couples, a few single dudes, and a whole family of four on the way home from little league baseball practice.

Perhaps the reason why Hayashimaru draws such a broad crowd is because its ramen is so accessible and the staff is so courteous, with a clean new kitchen a far cry from the back alley ramen shops of yore.

For whatever reason, I was expecting something of an old school, deep, strong shôyu (soy sauce) broth, but Hayashimaru's soup is pretty close to the standard model for 21st century new school shôyu - pale brown, mild, a bit sweet, a bit fishy, not too oily. It almost tasted like tsukemen broth from a mainstream tsukemen shop that had been diluted to a sippable level. This is ramen to be loved by all...

...well, all but dedicated ramen freaks like me who eat multiple bowls a week. There was just nothing going in with Hayashimaru to get me excited. It was executed smoothly, the noodles were homemade, fresh, and above average, and the egg was bursting with flavor, but the soup just didn't have that punch I was looking for.

To be fair, it seems like Hayashimaru's big menu item is the shio (salt) ramen with extra wontons. The soupless Chinese-style tantanmen also appeared to be quite popular. The meat seemed to be the star here, with huge cuts of fatty pork on most bowls, and even huger, fattier cuts of braised pork belly served as side dishes. Being the non-meat eating pseudo-vegetarian that I am, I think I'm just not the ideal customer for what Hayashimaru has to offer. So, I'll pass on any future visits to Hayashimaru, but if you like meat or wontons or meaty wontons, give it a shot. I can't in good faith talk shit on a shop that has made itself into the well-loved neighborhood shop for the new ramen generation.

西麻布五行 (Nishiazabu Gogyô)

2010-03-28T14:40:00.000-07:00

By now, there's a good chance that plenty of y'all know Gogyô. I wrote it up upon my first visit about a year ago, I rave about it as a point of comparison from time to time, and uh, it got featured in the New York Times. The place is not starving for good PR. But yknow what? I ate there again recently so I'm gonna tell you about how great it is all over again.

A few weeks back, my pal Y and I caught a show by my favorite cross-dressing torch song singer, Gallantique Kazue. Sipping on whisky in a smoky cabaret style lounge, we enjoyed an evening with one of the last remaining kayôkyoku (1970s Japanese dark and loungey pop) singers, as Kazue belted out the back catalog of Chiaki Naomi, one of the greatest of that generation.

Now, I happen to know that Gallantique Kazue himself is a big ramen fan, but as a Hakata boy born and raised, his tastes run to the same kind of porky smelly tonkotsu that I choose as my own superlative slurp. But it was a classy kind of evening, so where better to eat than the classed-up brand of the most classed-up shop from Hakata? World-famous Hakata ramen purveyor Ippûdô has been expanding into new genres, most notably, the fancy ramen dining chain Gogyô.

Gogyô is not your average ramen shop. The name is a reference to the five traditional Chinese elements, but Gogyô's own five elements are probably high-end ramen, tasty appetizers, fancy interiors, a sumptuous sake selection, and relaxed pace of dining. Relaxed enough that Y and I shuddered in the cold for 20 minutes waiting for a table.

We started out with some whisky on the rocks and plum wine...

...and an appetizer of vinegared cucumbers served with sesame oil and Chinese five spice. That was our sommeliers recommended pairing. Not. The place is fancy, but the day I see a sommelier at a ramen shop I'll choke.

That said, we were in fact asked if we would like our ramen "with our drinks and appetizers, or afterwards as a main course." Ooo-la-la! Not wanting to let go of the smoky vibe that Gallantique Kazue had created for us early in the evening, we both went with Gogyô's famous "burnt" ramen. This time around I got the burnt shôyu (soy sauce), which has a great musky, charcoal-like flavor on top of the already deep and strong, nearly black soy base.

But the burnt miso, which Y got, is even blacker, stronger, and smokier. The smokiness isn't just a metaphor - you can see flames leaping up from the kitchen. At the same time, both bowls manage to maintain a sweetness that put them at the level of some of the best soups I've ever tasted. I also like how Gogyô keeps the rest of the bowl so old-school, with a big slice of yellow-yolked egg and a pink and white twirl of naruto fishcake.

Gogyô's soup may be top flight, but my impression of the noodles last time around was lest positive. While definitely well-done, I don't really care for the thin but flat shape. My only other complaint with Gogyô is that the heavy ceramic spoons they use conduct heat from the freshly fired soup a bit too well, making it easy to burn one's lips on the first couple sips. But these are both minor quibbles easily forgotten when confronted with the sheer deliciousness in the rest of the bowl.

And besides, a scorched tongue is easily soothed with a dessert of smooth blueberry ice cream. You can go to Gogyô for a full-course meal, a loungey place to relax, or just a simple bowl, but I'm willing to be you won't walk away disappointed. The prices are also very reasonable for what you get, cheaper than even some more standard shops. I'll have to see if Gallantique Kazue has an opinion next time I talk to him, because this is ramen worth crooning over.

九州らーめん (Kyushu Ramen)

2010-03-26T14:40:00.000-07:00

There are different reasons for wanting to eat at a specific ramen shop. Maybe you saw it on TV. Maybe you saw it in a magazine. Maybe a friend told you it was good. Maybe the master trained at your favorite shop. Or maybe you'd just walked by it so many times that you couldn't help but get curious.

Kyushu Ramen falls firmly in the last category. Located at one of the major intersections in the seedy nightlife district of Kabukicho, I passed Kyushu ramen countless times while stumbling my way home at blue'o'clock AM after drinking in Golden Gai. "One of these days, I will eat there, but for now, I am drunk, and I want to go to bed," I told myself. I figured the ramen would most likely be horrible, but at least there would probably be some yakuza, cabaret hostesses and other denizens of the 3 AM shift inside.

Well, a few weeks ago, after a *few* drinks, my pal A and I found ourselves stumbling along that same familiar route, and we deemed it a good call to put some more calories in our bellies for sustenance on the long walk home.

Needless to say, the place was properly packed with drunken salarymen, yakuza types, hostess girls, and even a few old-guard mama-sans in fur trimmed kimonos. "Hey, how come those guys got their food before we did even though they ordered after us?" A wondered. "Probably because they are in the mob, dude."

One broken glass, several tired looks from the staff, and an indefinite number of minutes later, we got our food.

Kyushu Ramen offers everything under the sun a drunk person might want, from chicken and dumplings to "variety meals" (whatever that means), to of course, several different kinds of ramen.

I was half-surprised to see that the ramen I got did indeed resemble ramen from the southern island of Kyushu, a pretty passable stab at reproducing Kumamoto Ramen - milky white but relatively thin yet garlicky tonkotsu (pork bone) soup, medium thin extra straight noodles, an overcooked egg. No wood-ear mushrooms, but we're not exactly splitting hairs here. They pulled off a better bowl than the Waseda University Cafeteria attempt at Kyushu ramen (which wasn't bad at all).

My taste buds weren't exactly firing at full bore, but you know what, it tasted pretty good. Most likely anything would have tasted good after that much distilled barley liquor, but hey, with their clientele, Kyushu ramen could slide by serving up a lot worse. To be honest, I even preferred this to famous Kumamoto ramen shop Keika in Shibuya. As much as the ramen world changes and advances, a major purpose of the stuff will always be filling the bellies of drunk single dudes, and we were that.

虎龍 (Kotatsu)

2010-03-24T16:26:00.000-07:00

This one is pretty low key. My buddy Y and I met up to grab lunch on the way to school, so decided to hit up one of the recently opened shops in Shinjuku.

Located right in the heart of Kabukicho, Japan's most notorious evening entertainment district, Kotatsu (Tiger and Dragon) is just down the block from some seriously old school sex shops. Maybe they chose the name to express virility and/or alacrity, such as one might need when cruising cabaret clubs? Like most Kabukicho ramen joints, it's open until 4 AM, or 29:00 in Japanese parlance.

Kotatsu just opened a couple of months ago, and it was recommended by the team at A, Gachamen. Though there's no direct lineage, Kotatsu, like Gachamen is one of many shops offering miso ramen in the model of Sapporo's famous Ramen Sumire.

When the bowls came out they seemed to be essentially standard to the Sumire model - medium light brown miso with lots of oil on top, stewed white onions, medium curly bright yellow noodles. One beef (as it were), was the excess amount of ground pork. I ordered my bowl with no meat, making it clear I didn't want the ground meat as well as passing on the sliced pork châshû, but that's not what happened. Negative points for not listening to customers.

The soup was tasty enough, very rich miso with hints of garlic and ginger, a very solid egg, and noodles without fault. All in all a solid bowl, but if you want to eat the best Sapporo-style ramen in Tokyo, get thee to Junren, two stops up the line in Takdanobaba. Sister shop of Sumire, I've yet to find a traditional miso bowl to top that one. All in all, this is probably one of, if not the strongest miso options in the Shinjuku area, but it's probably not journey-worthy.

一福　(Ichifuku)

2010-03-22T14:24:00.000-07:00

We were pretty lost. Pretty prettttttty preeeeeettttttttty turned around. Wandering through the back streets between Hatagaya and Hatsudai stations in the western suburbs, Keizo, Brian and I felt like we were going in circles through the little known neighborhood of Honmachi, tucked away just out of sight of the freeway.

Having already attained copies of all the ramen guides currently on the market, I had scored a few out of print mags at a used bookshop, so we took a little time travel back to the recent past of 2006 to try and seek out some new spots. Our eyes landed on Ichifuku, which looks like your neighborhood ramen shop. And it is. But it's much more than just that.

Run by not-so-little old lady Ishida Kumiko, Ichifuku celebrates twenty years in business this fall. The inside was cozy and decorated with fresh plum blossoms and faded magazine postings; many of the customers seemed to be regulars, which isn't surprising, as there is essentially zero chance of finding the shop just walking by.

But numbering among those regulars is a certain Ishigami Hideyuki, one of the main mover and shaker ramen critics today. "The man with the tongue of a god," Ishigami gained fame about a decade ago by winning a taste test to become the Ramen "TV Champion", catapulting to instant (relative) fame. Any shop he deems worthy of pantheonic status has its future essentially assured.

Over the years, Ichifuku has been visited by not just Ishigami, but nearly every generation of TV Champion Ramen King, making it a secret pilgrimage spot for each who takes on the crown. And now we were here. Just sayin'.

We flipped through some vintage magazines, including the much sought-after guide written by Shinasoba-ya master Sano Minoru. With hunger panging away, Brian tried to eat the noodles straight out of the magazine, but to little avail.

I ordered the spicy miso ramen, a nearly bright orange broth with a big dab of Korean-style tobanjan (spicy chili miso paste) on top. Thin and relatively simple,this is neighborhood-style miso ramen from before the boom, lacking much influence from the Sapporo Sumire / Junren tradition, or the flash and pizazz of the post-Kururi era. Diced onions, bamboo shoots, and mysterious little crunchy things round out the bowl. Keizo tried to ask as to the nature of these little croutons that never got soggy, but Ishida-san responded with a coy "hmm, I wonder what they might be..." Who says old ladies don't have secret weapons?

The noodles were thick, fairly straight, and tasty. And the soy poached egg was absolutely bursting with flavor. Overall a tasty enough bowl, but to be perfectly honest a bit salty and not so special. So what's the big deal with this place?

This is the big deal. Keizo was smart enough to order Ichifuku's famous Irori (hearth-style) noodles, which is unlike any other bowl of ramen any of us had ever seen. In addition to the standard pork, chicken, and seaweed, blonde miso, sake lees, and soy milk go into the soup. It's all topped off with fresh mizuna greens, diced pork, and um, shark cartilage. "It sounds like old people Chinese medicine," Brian remarked. But it tasted real, real nice.

I was a bit scared off, having had a bad experience once with shark cartilage. But one sip made me wish I could drink this every day. More than ramen, this tasted like a fancy traditional dish that might be served in a countryside inn that just happened to have manifested itself in the form of ramen. Absolutely delicious. In addition to the Irori noodles, Ichifuku also has a rotating menu of other interesting items, like plum-flavored tsukemen (dipping noodles), curry ramen, and so forth. Essentially, this is what highly experimental ramen looked like 20 years ago, and it stands the test of time admirably.

ジャンクがレッジ (Junk Garage)

2010-03-20T14:07:00.000-07:00

You may have already heard tell of this epic journey through the blog of Brian the Ramen Adventurer, but any good epic should be told by multiple narrators. Do you think a single guy went all the way around Greece telling the story of the Odyssey by himself? (this is a rhetorical question; that is a picture of Armand Assante as Odysseus).

The mission was simple, or so it seemed. Travel to the town of Higashi Omiya in neighboring Saitama Prefecture and eat at the famed shop Junk Garage. Which is sort of like the Tokyo equivalent of setting out from Troy to find your way back to Ithaca (Greece, not NY). Or heading out from Brooklyn to go eat in Secacus, NJ. Take your pick.

We made it 90 percent of the way, as far as Omiya, two stations away, when our Odyssean hunger struck a proverbial iceberg of train delays. All trains had ceased running on the line that links the two station, but we were unstymied by either technical difficulties or mixed metaphors and decided to weigh our options.

The next train - delayed 50 minutes. And that was an optimistic estimate. We never really did figure out what the issue was - midday train suicides generally don't take half that long to clear off the tracks. The station attendant put on her best forced "I feel your pain" grimace and told us that our only options would be to wait or to ride back from whence we came and take the bus. Or give up all together?

But did Ulysses give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? No! We would not be swayed from our quest to eat at a restaurant called "Junk Garage." We made the brave sacrifice of leaving the safety of the station to venture out into suburban Omiya.

Surrounded by menacing colossi (or at least colossoid department stores), we overcame our panic to find the best possible way to kill a few hours - an emergency visit to the Japan Railways museum, conveniently located a 15 minute walk away.

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Fortunately, eating a bowl of oily ramen at a restaurant that sounds like an auto body shop in Long Beach does not count as a good intention. The road to the railway museum, however, is paved with stones bearing the express train schedules of yore. The irony was not lost on us.

All sarcasm aside, the Japan Railways Museum is really pretty awesome. It just opened a year or two ago and is a cavernous structure packed with more train parts than you can shake a stick at and occupied by hundreds if not thousands of excited Y-chromosome bearers and approximately zero women unaccompanied by overzealous husbands, sons, and school children.

We ourselves being dudes, we easily spent two hours exploring the premises, thrilling to...

Railway-themed stained glass windows!

Demonstrations of snow-plow technology!

Impressively sized dioramas!

Displays of electrical cords!

Chassis!

Driver simulators!

Vintage station lunchbox covers!

The first ever bullet train!

And much more. But when you've seen a real train driving past a pretend train driving past a pretend kiddie train, it's time to go back to the real train station.

We hurried back and rode to Higashi Omiya without incident! Oh wait, no sorry, that's the inside of a display car at the museum, so you can pretend that you are riding the train that you actually rode on your way to the museum.

We made it back to Omiya station almost three hours later...just in time for the first train to take off in our direction. If it wasn't for a breakdown in railway service we might never have made it to the railway museum...

...or gotten to mosh at midday. We had intended to be at Junk Garage before the door opened, but we ended up having to haul ass, just barely making it in 15 minutes before they closed for lunch.

Here it is, Junk Garage! No, wait, sorry, that's the offensively caricatured ramen shop down the block.

THIS is Junk Garage. The feeling of victory upon our ultimate arrival was almost worth all the delays and confusion.

Where to even begin with Junk Garage? It's a part of the Rokurinsha group empire, one of the most powerful movers and shakers in the ramen world. Rokurinsha occupies the rank of most popular tsukemen (dipping noodle) shop in Tokyo (ergo the world?), and was one of the main shops to kick off the tsukemen boom we find ourselves in, as well as set up the recent tsukemen festival. Taishôken may be the tsukemen progenitor, but Rokurinsha is tsukemen for the 21st century, and Junk Garage counts itself among Roku's many progeny. Like Rokurinsha (and FUTO and Tasukiya, they use noodles from Asakusa Kaikarô, the thickest, chewiest, and curliest in town.

Inside, the vibe is all rock and roll, with metal blaring, band paraphenalia tacked up on nearly every wall, and an all around fun atmosphere. So fun, in fact, that we couldn't help but notice the huge hickey on the peroxide blonde waitress' neck. But what's the deal with Junk Garage noodles? What noodles best fit the Saitama-metal-hickeyed waitress-rock dude mode?

These ones, man. Junk Garage has single-handedly revolutionized the concept of abura soba / mazemen / shirunashi soba (soupless noodles), turning a simple bowl of noodles sitting in a bit of flavor essence oil into these heaving behemoths of carbohydrate.

This rogues gallery includes, from the top - a raw egg, bean sprouts, cabbage, lard, shrimp mayonnaise, crunchy fried things, raw garlic, and dried fish. I've said it before, and I'll say it again - verily, this is the Japanese nachos.

So mix it up real, real good.

And take a big, big bite. It may look like the wrong end of a hangover, but trust me, it is extremely delicious. Remember, this place is called Junk Garage after all. It is our Penelope. With one bite all the pain of the long journey instantly vanished. Salty, savory, chewy, crunchy, and more, Junk Garage's tokusei mazemen (special mixed noodles) are a big mess of taste sensation well worth the trip. Just in case you want soup with your noodles, the ramen at Junk is also comically over the top, featuring Jirô style piles of veggies and lard stacked as high as the rest of the bowl combined.

At this point, you are either totally disgusted or shamelessly salivating. Junk Garage is not for everyone, but if you like a good calorie bomb to your arteries now and then, then this is the place for you. I'm willing to bet it would be even better after a few beers....

ラーメンゼロ (Ramen Zero)

2010-03-19T13:43:00.000-07:00

I ended my last post, in regards to a recent visit to Bigiya, by noting that my ramen freak buddies and I were left hungry for more. When you're as devoted to noodles and soup as we are and you've got room in your belly on a sunday afternoon, well there's only one thing to do - hunt down another bowl.

We did a quick pop in a convenience store to flip through the latest ramen mags for ideas when it struck us. Wait, nothing struck us at all. Or rather, Zero did. Ramen Zero that is, located near the Meguro station on the Yamanote loop line of central Tokyo. Seizing a rare chance to experience the materiality of a negation (though come to think of it, nearly every ramen bowl resembles a zero if viewed from the right angle), we hopped back on the train in search of the quest for zero.

The history of zero, of the very concept of a lack as a universal presence, can be traced back to the ancient Babylonians, Mesoamericans and Arabic mathematicians. Fortunately, the history of Ramen Zero is a bit less complicated. This zero was conceptualized a few years back by the team at Setagaya, one of the most economically powerful players in the ramen scene. In addition to the original Setagaya shops, the company also has birthed Hirugao, Fukumori, Daidai, Momo no Ki, and Nanbu. And of course, it's one of the most familiar names to foreign slurpers, since Setagaya is one of the few Japanese chains to run a shop in New York.

At first glance, Zero's bowl looks pretty standard. So what makes it so specially Zero? What is the fundamental absence at the heart of this soup? The answer is both simple and shocking. Ramen Zero's ramen is made without tare, the thick, distilled flavor essence at the base of essentially all ramen that the boiled broth its strong taste and salt content.

A recent reader question about ramen types brought this issue up - ramen types like shôyu (soy sauce) and shio (salt) are based on the type of tare used, while tonkotsu (pork bone) is actually a distinction of the soup broth itself. Often overlooked, tare is one of the key components of any bowl of ramen, along with the broth and the noodles, and its production can be the most complex of any element of the whole.

So, how does the tare-less temptation taste? To be honestly, a bit weak. Turns out that there's definitely a reason why most all shops have tare. It's true that we may have been ruined by growing used to overly strong tastes, but the soup just felt too thin with only the salt content and flavors from the ingredients boiled in, which include pork bones, chicken, veggies, seaweed, clams, scallops, squid, and sardines.

The fully loaded Zero bowl comes with extra pork, an egg, and a bunch of littleneck clams whose shells have to be picked out of the bowl. But nonetheless, the final result wasn't quite satisfying, at least for us noodle geeks. I'd be happy to drink a cup of this soup with a meal, but it just lacked the punch you look for a truly epic bowl. When Ramen Zero opened up shop a couple months back it was the toast of the town, an experimental bowl predicated on a concept so fundamental it had always been overlooked.

But we'll see how this ramen stands the test of time. Something tells me that Setagaya corporations contributions to culture may not be around as long as those Olmec stone heads. Ramen Zero scores way above a 0 on the card, but you're better off spending your 1000 (yen, that is) elsewhere.

びぎ屋 (Bigiya)

2010-03-10T01:21:00.000-08:00

I think Keizo beat me to the punch with this pun, but I can't think of a better corny line, so I'm gonna use it too - this bowl is all about the Notorious Bi.Gi.Ya.

It was all a dream/ I like to read ramen magazines / slurpin' bowls up in the limousine / hangin' pictures on my blog / every wednesday noodle attack eating bowls with my doggs / I let my mouth rock cause I can't stop / eatin' ramen, drinkin' beer, sippin' on fish stock / way back, when i had the red and black lumberjack / with soup stains to match.

Which is another way of telling you that Keizo, Brian, and I found ourselves in the Gakugei Daigaku neighborhood, about to eat at Bigiya on one of our regular ramen dude dates.

A bartender at one of Keizo's regular haunts (am I getting this right?) tipped us off to Bigiya, saying his friend had just opened up shop in the south part of town. The shop has gotten some good notices, and been featured in a number of magazines and other media mouthpieces since opening a number of months back.

Bigiya is pretty much your standard above average new school ramen shop - comfortable and clean but not quite fancy interior, friendly atmosphere...

...and of course the industry standard of dark brown soup made from blended fish, pork, and chicken stock. Shops like Menya Musashi (post coming soon!) pioneered this kind of ramen about 15 years ago, and it's become to our age what standard shôyu was to the postwar Tokyo ramen world. This is basically shôyu ramen for the 21st century.

Some shops do it a bit thicker, some a bit thinner, but each one puts their own spin and take on what is more or less a model at this point. I'd put Bigiya pretty firmly in that category, which doesn't mean it was a bad bowl at all. There was nothing to push it into the highly memorable category, but to their credit they also don't go for any gimmicks, instead focus on execution, with a soy-infused egg second to none, extra fresh bamboo shoots, and an overall impression of effort.

The noodles are moderately thick, moderately straight, and perfectly acceptable. I don't know if they use industry standard Mikawaya Seimen or another sourcer. Apparently each ingredient is individually sourced, with chicken from Tottori, soy sauce from Shizuoka, and sea salt from Okinawa. All in all a solid bowl, but we were still hungry for more...but it's alllll good.

海神 (Kaijin)

2010-03-09T00:40:00.000-08:00

People have a lot of mistaken ideas about ramen. What it is, how to eat it, whathave you. But one ramen-related stereotype that's been on the wane of late is that whatever ramen is, it's not for ladies. Though there are plenty of shops that maintain that old school down and out slurper image, and plenty more that embrace the dudely side of ramen full bowl (see Ramen Jirô), there are more than a few that actively seek to appeal to lady noodle lovers.

There was even a recent book (and one of the best on the market at that) called "Girls' Noodle Club" highlighting shops in the metropolis that can leave a lovely lady satisfied.

Restaurants in Japan often become weirdly gender-segregated - beef bowls, fried pork, and curry huts for boys, bakeries, cute cafes, and foreign foods for girls. Some shops, like Machida's Koshinbô actively appeal to women with pastel interiors and healthy menus, but many of the current generation of ramen shops, if not actively seeking to transcend this binary, at least go out of their way to create a space that feels comfortable for patrons regardless of class or gender.

Enter Kaijin. Located just across the street from the southeast exit of Shinjuku station, Kaijin is an easy to overlook shop worth not overlooking. A few weeks back my friend Y and I set out to give it a shot.

The name may mean "god of the sea," but the deity in charge here is all goddess. The head cook at Kaijin is one of a small but growing number of female chefs in the ramen world, and she's not messing around, but playing for all the fish in the sea. Which is exactly what finds it's way into Kaijin's broth.

The soup at Kaijin is a light broth made almost exclusively from the frutti di mare, changing regularly depending on what's in season. The ingredients of the daily stock are displayed on cloth streamers inside the shop, which are switched out regularly. The day I visited, the soup was gleaned from tara (cod), sake (salmon), kanpachi (amberjack), kinmedai (sea bream), and madai (snapper), but the taste changes with the tides.

The result is a thin but fully flavorful and refined broth that maintains a pleasant taste of the ocean without becoming overly "fishy" like some darker soups made from dried bonito and mackerel stock. "Gyôkai" ramen has become an increasingly important genre, in which a very strong fish broth is blended with a creamy pork bone soup, as developed by shops like Aoba, Menya Musashi, and Watanabe. But Kaijin's bowl is something else entirely.

Kaijin's toppings are equally unconventional - a few sprigs of shiso leaf (beefsteak plant often served with sashimi), raw and spicy myôga ginger, and two chewy cakes, one made of finely ground chicken, the other of shrimp. The bowl is also available with a sprinkling of red chili, in case you want to add some kick to the engine of your ocean skiff.

The noodles are thin, straight and white, somewhere between what you might find in a bowl of Kumamoto ramen and a plate of vermicelli. They taste fresh and hold up well without getting soggy - another advantage to such a light and refreshingly unoily bowl.

If you go, be sure and throw down the extra few yen to get the set meal, which includes a ball of grilled rice mixed together with small bits of dried fish. Crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside like an eskimo in an igloo being eaten by a polar bear (huh?), it's perfectly edible by itself, but even better dipped in the soup. Kaijin isn't just a great ramen shop, but a great seafood restaurant that happens to only serve ramen. 70% of the planet is covered by oceans, so I expect a full 70% of you to go out and try Kaijin's ramen to try and even the balance, because this shop comes close to scoring a 100.

再び、再び (Again and Again!)

2010-03-06T02:23:00.000-08:00

If you check out the blogs of my noodle buddies Keizo at Go Ramen and Brian at Ramen Adventures, you'll notice that those guys post nearly every day. It's an impressive feat. Back in my own halcyon days, those crazy times when I still had an internet connection at home and didn't have to schlep to the library to put every new bowl online, I too, once maintained such a pace. But as the stacks of books and papers on prewar Japanese Marxist literary theory on my floor get bigger, so too does the bowl backlog grow.

At this point, I want to dedicate each new post to new and exciting ramen updates from all the latest shop visits, but at the same time, I want to try and stay true to my original intention from before the blog got fake famous - namely to post every bowl of ramen I eat. To that effect, I thought I'd take the time for a brief interlude to go through a bunch of recent revists. When friends come through town, we often find ourselves back at old favorites, so rather than re-review each shop and bowl one by one (I ain't Frank frickin' Bruni here), I thought I'd just post up a grip of photos with links back to the original reviews. Hope you get hungry!

Menya SOU in Takadanobaba

RYOMA in Araiyakushi-mae

BASSANOVA in Daitabashi

Yum, man!

大喜と大喜庵 (Daiki and Daiki-an)

2010-03-04T02:04:00.000-08:00

Daiki!

No, no, no, not the guitarist from the fuzzed out Oakland hardcore band Mörpheme (who take their umlaut seriously), the other Daiki.

Y'know, the famous Tokyo chicken soup ramen shop that's had a line out the door since they opened 11 years ago. Glad we're on the same page. Located near the south exit of Ueno Park, the original location of Daiki is in the Yushima Tenjin area, once known as thee place to go when in search of cross-dressing transvestite geishas.

These days, the precincts are a bit more austere, and you're more likely to find 30 souls shivering in the cold waiting for a hot bowl of chicken noodle soup than you are to see a shamisen player in drag. I was showing around some pals from the States, and we were feeling the pangs of hunger after spending the morning in Ueno's museums and back streets, so we met up with Ramen Adventurer Brian to stop in at Daiki for a bowl and a beer.

Daiki features very thin refined shio (salt) and shôyu (soy sauce) based soups, available in either standard or "torisoba" mode, the latter denoting a more pure chicken stock as the soup. Even if you don't get the torisoba, there's still plenty of chicken to be found. My bowl came with a serving of the rare three sided egg.

Daiki's noodles taste like they're specially made for the shop, and are extra straight and extra long, delivering a satisfying slurp. Like at Shinasoba-ya, they seemed to be placed in the bowl just right to get the perfect amount with every pull of the chopsticks. Though a thin shôyu soup, Daiki makes no bones (well, maybe chicken bones) in letting you know that they've evolved a long way from the simple brown East Tokyo soup of yore. Sadly, as a mere ramen blogger, my culinary vocabulary does not contain the words I need to describe the subtle flavor accents in this far from basic broth. The overall impression is fresh and light, and almost...healthy, though I could be getting fooled by the clover sprouts.

The even thinner and lighter shio ramen is just as tasty, and features a slightly different mix of fresh vegetables laid atop. The menma (bamboo shoots) are also some of the tastiest and woodsiest I've tried. All in all, I'd say Daiki was the best bowl I'd had that week...if it wasn't for the bowl I'd just eaten at...Daiki.

Or rather, Daiki-an to be more precise. Daiki-an, "Daiki's Hut" is the recently opened second shop, located in the freshly minted Ramen Yokochô ramen road area located in the basement of the Kôenji station mall.

Kôenji is a great town, but to tell the truth, it WAS missing a truly tasty ramen shop in the immediate station vicinity.

There are now four top shops located mere meters away from the station gates - top tsukemen shop TETSU, a branch of the always excellent (and very spicy) Môko Tanmen Nakamoto, a somewhat experimental tuna broth shop called Kunigami-ya (stay tuned for the review!), and of course, Daiki-an.

Despite (or perhaps because) of it's location in the basement of a train station, Daiki-an plays up the whole modern traditional Japanese design concept, with lots of hardwood decor, clean lines, and well-thought out abstract nature lighting concepts.

To be honest, it's pretty relaxing. And definitely a nice atmosphere to eat in, regardless of the fact that you're lined up along a twisting counter along with 30 of your closest slurping buddies.

My bowl, delivered on a black lacquered tray, was the ume shio torisoba - a fancy way of saying chicken noodle soup topped with shaved dried bonito and just a hint of pickled plum paste. Oh wait, that's actually a pretty fancy bowl to begin with. If the original Daiki was great, this bowl was even greater. By far one of the best bowls of shio ramen I've ever eaten, Daiki-an's ramen surpasses even new school shio standards like AFURI and SOU, at least in this humble ramen critic's opinion.

A fresh and crunchy salad of green stems, an eminently sippable soup (that got drank down to the dregs, thank you very much), and top quality noodles, this bowl is downright masterful.

But even a master knows that some like it hot, so Daiki-an has provided shakers of ground red pepper, and even better, powdered sanshô, Japanese "mountain pepper" that's a near equivalent to the Chinese huajiao, the famously numbing "flower pepper" that makes your tongue tingle. I am a downright junkie for this stuff, and a dusting of that strangely undescribeable taste puts Daiki-an's ramen in the canonical category. A shop that's ridden out the trend and deserves its praise, Daiki is a top flight Tokyo shop that should be on every ramenater's hit list. But Daiki-an is even better, and psst, I'll tell you a secret - the lines there are shorter too!

ラミューネーション　イン　韓国、その二 (Ramyunating in Korea, Part Two)

2010-02-20T08:00:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks back, I posted an update about a bowl of ramyun gruzzled on my recent trip to Korea. I had fully intended to make another post about my other bowl of ramen on the continent, but then there was that whole thing about being featured in the New York Times. I figured it would probably be unbecoming for all the new visitors to show up on the site and only see posts about instant noodles in Korea, rather than ramen shops in Tokyo, so I put off the second half of the trip report...until now!

After leaving Seoul (a day later than originally planned...I'd like to thank the third worst hangover of my entire life), I headed to the southeasternmost corner of the Korean peninsula, to a town called Mokpo, from which I caught a boat oat to the remote offshore islands of Heuksando and Hongdo.

Needless to say, this part of Korea is a very different world from the megalopolis a half day's bus and boat ride away. When Ramenate goes on vacation, he heads to remote fishing villages in the dead of winter, folks. My vacation this time last year was to Manchuria. What can I say, I get bored quick on sunny beaches.

Despite being part of a maritime nature preserve, Heuksando and Hongdo aren't exactly scenic in the traditional sense, or at least not pristine sense. Which, of course, makes them much more interesting. I can look at pretty rocks anywhere, but how often do you get to experience what one Korean friend of mine called "Escape from Bum Island?" After watching a lot of stingrays and monkfish auctioned off to seafood merchants, I befriended a vacationing couple who helped me find some grub, which is not an easy task in this part of the world, at least, not in the off season.

We traveled from Heuksando further into the sea, to the even more remote island of Hongdo, which seemed to be sort of like the Korean island equivalent of Mad Max. I don't want to give a bad impression about the place - I met all kinds of nice people on this godforsaken rock that harkened images of postapocalpytic end times. I know you didn't sign up for a travelogue here, but I feel like I need to give some context for the second most far flung bowl of ramen I've ever eaten.

I was dozing on the heated floor of my hotel room when my new friends knocked on my door making the East Asia-wide gesture for dinnertime - miming chopsticks shoveling rice into your mouth. We wandered out into the near pitch black down to the pier.

Fortunately, the inside of the vinyl lean-to was kept nice and warm thanks to a small space heater, a chubby proprietress, and plenty of alcohol. Warm enough that halfway through our meal an 80 year old man wandered in for dinner in his bare feet.

The shop specialized in sashimi, raw cuts of obscure shellfish that I couldn't begin to name. I think there was probably some abalone in there, but otherwise, your guess as to the original identity of these life forms is as good as mine. Unlike in Japan, where soy sauce is the standard, most people in Korea dip their seafood in chili paste, garlic, and sesame oil, which is fine by me.

But weird and possibly still alive shellfish parts do not a full meal make, so it didn't take too many glasses of beer until we ordered a piping warm bowl of ramyun. Actually, we ordered a whole pot, brought to our table in situ. I opted for the provided styrofoam bowl...

...but my buddy showed me how they do it "Korean countryside style" and started heaping noodles onto the metal lid. We both slurped away for all we were worth, to keep warm, to absorb the soju in our bellies, to risk offending the fishermen at the next table. Oh yeah, and because it was totally delicious. Did I mention that the homemade kimchi was also killer?

This was a piping hot bowl just like mom used to make. Literally - my love for ramen took me to Shin Ramyun early on. Going through the comment thread on the recent NYT article, there seems to be a bit of back and forth about how much ramen is just "about the food", how much is about the search, and so on. You can't think about the experience of a meal without thinking about where you ate it, and who you ate it with, and no bowl in Tokyo can taste quite like instant noodles slurped in a shack on a rock in the middle of the Yellow Sea.

じゃぐら (Jagura)

2010-02-18T23:09:00.000-08:00

Properly scouring the metropolis for the most properly proper ramen shops can be a properly time consuming job. If you do it properly, that is. The noodle in one's head becomes overwhelmed with a glut of noodle shop names as numerous as the globules of fat in a bowl of Tsubame ramen. There are web databases, magazines, TV shows, books, email tips, recommendations from friends, recommendations from teachers, recommendations from faithful blog readers... But the problem with food media (as most mass media) in Japan, is that hardly anyone is inclined to say anyone bad about anything. By virtue of appearing in a magazine at all, a shop is certain to get nothing but praise, even if, well, it sucks. Which makes the investigative eater's job that much harder. I try not to chase down every praise-blown shop in the glossy new mags, but sometimes, well, those shops downright rule.

Included in this happy number of newly opened shops that actually deserve the breathless praise they get is Jagura, located on along the shopping street just north of the Shin-Kôenji subway station. My bluesman buddy Junior Ken and I had our sights set on a different shop, but an unexpected closure took us to Jagura, seduced by the signage signaling the most salubrious slurp in south Kôenji.

Just what on earth does Jagura mean anyways? Jaguar?

Juggler?

Jagger?

Jugular? I think I'm gonna go ahead and call it for jugular, because your jugular is the only vein in your body that will be left unclogged after supping on this thick sludge of a soup made from boiled down pork bones.

Jugular is one of the shops subscribing to the current trend of chônôkô (super thick) or gokunôkô (mega thick) soup that can barely still be called liquid. The gooey soup trend has become so intense in recent months that some ramen critics have been known to bring their viscosity-measureometers to shops to measure the viscosity of the broth. The meter readings are naturally prominently featured in magazine articles highlighting the gooeyness of each shop's soup.

It may look like sewage, but it tastes like heaven. I'd eaten extra thick soup at Misoya Ringodô, but this takes the cake, and probably has about as many fat calories. It's like a bowl of Kumamoto ramen on steroids - a sweet, mild and not too stinky tonkotsu (pork bone) soup topped with kikurage (wood ear mushroom) slices and a healthy (or not so healthy, depending on how you look at it) helping of black burnt garlic oil. Then take the whole thing and increase by a geometric factor to get this delicious dish.

The noodles are extra thick too - thin straight noodles would likely collapse under the sheer weight of this soup. If you like your ramen rich, then this is for you - lots of chew drowning in a bowl of porky gruel.

The soup shares some similarities with the recently reborn FUTO, in that it's surprisingly sweet and perfumed with just a hint of shellfish broth to temper the pure pork base.

Like Curtis Mayfield sings, you have a "choice of colors." So which one would you choose, my brother? In addition to the black, which is topped with black mâyu (sesame oil with scorched garlic), there's also the red, featuring spicy chili oil, and the brown, which Junior Ken ordered, in which the oil is made from fish broth, adding to the oceany flavor.

In case that's not enough of a calorie bomb for ya, Jagura also offers a triple cheese topping - parmesan, cheddar, and cream cheese. But you've got to be one of the first 10 heads to order beginning at 5:30 PM, or else your arteries will stay blissfully unclogged. Limited time, limited number menu items are definitely one way to get customers in the door at slow hours. I'll try that one next time.

Fortunately, the Jagura team is thoughtful enough to keep you from walking out with putrid breath and a limp tongue. Each seat has a small decanter of concentrated jasmine tea - add a few drops to your water and feel instantly refreshed.

Oh yeah, there's one more item on the menu - the shop itself! Only 10 million yen (about $100,000 dollars) will buy you Jagura itself...too bad that item is already sold out. But that's OK, I think the present team is doing just fine the way things are. This was a good one, kids!

太助家 (TASUKIYA)

2010-02-10T00:40:00.000-08:00

It's hard to get people together these days. Not so much with the social movements and mass gatherings in the 21st century, at least not in Japan. What might bring 200,000 people together in this day and age? A free concert by the biggest band in the land? A political event? Nope, comic books!

Twice a year every year, all the geeks in Japan descend on the Tokyo Big Site convention center, located on the artificial island of Odaiba to buy all the manga they can in three days. Comic Market, known as Komike for short, is something of a social phenomenon, and quite a scene to behold. I'm not up on the latest cat-eared girl comics or cute boy romance quarterlies, but I wanted to witness Komike once in my life. My pals K and K and I set off with our own geek guide B and joined the jostling mob.

I have much love for manga, but my tastes run to the classics and the crazy, so most of the fun was in gandering at the endless parade of woodwork comer outers. And of course the costume players! My favorite costume (and the only one unscantily clad enough to post on a public blog) was the guy dressed as Miyazaki Hayao, animation director of films like Nausicaa, Princess Mononoke, Totoro, and Spirited Away, the "Walt Disney of Japan."

Close contact with 200,000 of your closest friends (most of whom have crazed looks in their eyes as they scramble for the nearest limited edition book) is enough to make anyone hungry, so once we made our escape we headed straight for the nearest bowl. The original plan was Tsukishima Rock, but we were stymied by an unexpected day off, so we skipped around the corner from the Tsukishima subway station to find TASUKIYA.

Located on the first floor of an old-fashioned house in this traditional neighborhood of Tokyo, TASUKIYA is actually the shop behind the noodles at the famed FUTO. FUTO, written with the "ta" from TASUKIYA, means "FAT", and is a ramen shop located in the Takadanobaba neighborhood.

A collaboration between TASUKIYA and the team at the famed Asakusa Kaikarô noodle factory on one hand, and Fukuoka's Gen'ei on the other, FUTO proved so popular that it's gone from temporary installation to regular contender. Don't worry, TASUKIYA's own proprietor packs a few pounds himself!

The ramen at TASUKIYA, available in either strong (kotteri) or thin (assari) taste, is a creamy but mild tonkotsu (pork bone) blend, and it goes down smooth. There are some hints of seafood in the broth, and the kotteri ramen comes with an extra layer of fish soup oil and dried bonito skin across the top. Nonetheless, it's not too fishy for the unaccustomed, and there's enough going on in there to be eminently sippable.

A bowl like TASUKIYA's comes close to the platonic ideal of a new-school bowl of tonkotsu ramen balanced out with shôyu (soy sauce) and fish stock. It doesn't hurt that the egg is that much softier and runnier, the bamboo that much fresher, and the onions that much greener than at most other shops.

And the noodles, coming from the artisanal Kaikarô factory also located in an older part of riverine old Tokyo, are second to none. I love thick noodles, and these have just the right around of curl, just the right amount of "mochi mochi" chewiness.

The noodles are also available in tsukemen form, served dry to be dipped. Kaikarô came to prominence by providing the noodles to Rokurinsha, which is generally acknowledged as sitting at the top of the heap of Tokyo tsukemen shops, which is saying something, considering tsukemen's booming popularity at present.

The tsukemen soup for dipping is a bit sweeter, more vinegary, and milder than the ramen, and it goes well with a slice of lemon, just like the Campari and soda I am about to drink. A soup like this can trace it's heritage to the Taishôken tsukemen tradition, but they've twiddled the formula enough to keep it interesting. TASUKIYA is good stuff, so next time you find yourself on this little manmade island in an obscure corner of Tokyo bay, give it a shot!

ラハメン　ヤマン (Rahmen Yahman)

2010-02-08T00:23:00.000-08:00

Nope, that's not a typo, but an H firmly rooted in the middle of the noodle. Some people debate over the "proper" romanization of the word ramen, but this H is here for a much simpler reason - to make "ramen" rhyme with "yah man." Because Rahmen Yahman, located in the western suburb of Ekoda, is totally devoted to Jamaican rasta culture.

I don't know if the shop master spent time living in Jamaica, or if he just really, really, really, really likes reggae music, but Yahman is somewhere between the set of The Harder They Come, a Jamaican Travel Agency, and, well, a ramen shop.

If you look closely, you can see the carefully coiffed J-fro on the head cook. The soundtrack inside is, of course, a blend of roots reggae and classic dub tracks. Here, some Lee Perry should put you in the mood.

The music sets a relaxing vibe, and both cooks and diners seem to be operating on island time. I'd want to stay and hang out for a while, sipping on a few Red Stripe beers...if it wasn't for the line ten long out the door.

Like the Bob Marley "Legend" CD that half the kids in your college dorm played on every warm sunny day, Yahman's rahmen is available at "The Nice Price." A mere 650 yen gets you a bowl of the standard shôyu (soy sauce soup), and feel free to choose from a standard, large, or extra large helping for no additional charge. After all, what kind of rastafarian doesn't have a high end scale handy? For measuring the noodles, right? In addition to the basic shôyu, Yahman also offers shio ("salt") ramen in clear chicken broth, and for the duration of the winter, miso ramen as well.

But keep your eyes peeled inside, since there are secret menu items hidden behind menus and on tabletops. You can get a slice of lemon for your tsukemen dipping noodles, "Junk Ramen" packed with extra oil, "aburaha" soupless noodles, or something called a "zannen tamago", a "bummer egg," which I didn't order in time. Bummer.

And the noodles come out! Yahman's shôyu rahmen is a seemingly straightforward bowl - the standard toppings of chashu pork, nori seaweed, menma pickled bamboo, and sliced scallions, as well as a bit of leafy veggies called edona. The soup is extremely well-balanced, with just enough fish stock (probably from either bonito or sardines) to keep it interesting, without being overpowerlingly oceany. It's neither thick and drippy, nor is it the uber-thin classic style Tokyo broth.

But soup alone does not a great ramen make (I think Halie Selassie said that). Yahman's noodles are absolutely top tier, thick straight, and round. I'm pretty sure these guys come hand rolled. Firm, chewy, and copious, they stayed strong to the very end of this deep bowl.

Yahman's egg is equally out of this world, with a gooey orange yolk. Although most ramen eggs are "ajitsuke" - poached in soy sauce, they often taste like...regular boiled eggs. Yahman's is bursting with flavor and incredibly rich, almost the essence of both yolk and soy.

And of course, what would a bowl of ramen be without a side of green?

Come on, this may be a Jamaican ramen shop but it's still Japan! I'm talking about an extra helping of veggies to get your roughage!

My buddy S got the limited time only miso, topped with a grip of minced garlic, stir fried cabbage, and sprouts, and of course, a hint of butter. It was certainly solid, but I think I preferred the shôyu.

If for some reason you find Yahman's rahmen lacking (and you shouldn't!), you can get it spiced up. Lots of restaurants in Japan advertise head-exploding spiciness on the menu, but the baseline is so low that you barely get a tingle. But Jamaica is the kind of place where Scotch Bonnet peppers go in the rice and peas, so proceed with trepidation.

Like curry miso ramen joint Yahiko, Yahman provides Blair's After Death and Sudden Death sauces tableside. I'm something of a chilihead myself, and this stuff is not a joke. The tiniest dab of Sudden Death is enough to give you a near death experience and make you choke. In a good way, of course.

If you'd rather go native, there's Jamaica's own Grace's Hot Pepper Sauce, which seems downright mild next to Blair's. If your mouth lights up like the cherry on a Jamaican spliff you can wash it all down with a nice chilly Dr. Pepper, which is a true rarity in Tokyo.

If you find your nose running and your eyes watering, tissues are thoughtfully provided by the Tiki God. Rahmen Yahman is a great ramen experience from start to end. Good music, good vibes, good food, good drinks, good times. Maybe some day they can get more experimental and come up with a jerk sauce ramen akin to the reimagined Thai green curry ramen at Basanova?

And if you spilled any soup on your shirt while slurping, you can get the stains taken care of at the equally irie dry cleaners right next door...

麺の房砦 (Men no Bo Toride)

2010-02-06T00:04:00.000-08:00

If you've ever spent time in New York or Tokyo, there's a very good chance that you've heard of Ippûdô. A few decades ago, the chain shot to superstardom by reimagining the gritty and stinky tonkotsu (pork bone) Hakata ramen of the southern city of Fukuoka as fine dining for the whole family. Love that creamy melted marrow taste but don't want your pores smelling like pig? Then Ippûdô is the place for you. There are now outposts all over Japan, and the shop caused big waves (is a soup bowl big enough for waves?) when a branch opened in New York in 2008. Are the lines to eat at the Manhattan shop still 90 minutes long?

Ippûdô has always been one of my own favorite shops, since I'm something of a dedicated follower of Hakata ramen. Their empire has also come to include the excellent and even finer dining restaurant Gogyô, whose burnt miso ramen also made an appearance in the Matt Gross's NYT article. A more distant relation in the extended Ippûdô family is Men no Bô Toride (Noodle Kitchen Fortress), founded by Nakahira Masakatsu, who spent 13 years (and three months!) working at Ippûdô before striking out on his own.

Nakahira was one of those "ramen youths" whose total eating devotion rivals even Go Ramen' Keizo's Epic Ramen Journey across Japan. Nakahira hit the road with his sleeping bag at age 19, sometimes plowing through as many as eight shops in a single day. A true pilgrim, Nakahira found his perfect bowl, and his calling at Ippûdô, and Toride, while not run by Ippûdô, seems to have received the patriarchal blessing.

Located just up the hill from Shibuya station, and an even shorter stones throw from the Shinsen station on the Keio Inokashira line, Toride's comfortable dining room plays host to plenty of hungry salarymen (and even hungrier slackers) every lunch and dinner. Taking a page from Ippûdô's play book, Toride is running a ramen restaurant, and a very popular and efficient one at that.

Toride's bowl is a cleaned up version of a Hakata ramen even more traditional than that reimagined at Ippûdô. The soup, while still creamy, is a bit thinner, the noodles a bit thinner, the toppings that much more bare bones. But all this in no way makes Toride inferior. Ippûdô, while based on Hakata ramen, is really an entity all itself, Toride's bowl is very close to the classical model. It may look a bit plain now...

...but squeeze in some fresh pressed garlic, then toss in a healthy handful of the free tableside pickled red beni shôga ginger strips, and a generous amount of spicy takana (pickled mustard greens), and shake on a few sesame seeds...

...and yo've got something a bit more like this. Half the fun of Hakata ramen is tricking the mother out until you've got a virtual garbage pit of garlic, ginger, sesame, pork, and chili to pull up with every strand of the superthin noodles. Like any Hakata shop worth its salt, you can choose from no less than seven degrees of al dentosity, ranging from bariyawa (extra soft), to barikata (extra firm), to harigane (downright wiry), to kona otoshi ("with the flour knocked off" - code for cooked for only one second).

Don't worry, these noodles are fresh enough to eat raw - I can say that with certainty since I spied Toride's own noodle factory less than 100 meters down the road.

In case that's not enough cholesterol for you, 200 yen gets you a ball of freshly boiled white rice served alongside a saucer of mentai mayonnaise - mayo mixed with sweet and spicy pink cod roe.

What can I say, I'm a sucker for this stuff!

STILL Hungry? Do what the locals do and call for a kaedama, an extra helping of noodles to soak up the last of the soup. Since Hakata noodles are so thin and low in water content, they tend to get soggy quickly, so it makes sense to eat repeated small portions, rather than start off with one big serving.

It's possible for your stomach to be delighted and angry with you at the same time, which is what happens when your bowl ends up like bottomed out:

Good to the last drop. Don't worry, I rode my bike 6 kilometers home after this, I promise!

知りたいでしょ、がんこラーメンの内観 (You're Probably Curious to see the Inside of Ganko Ramen, huh?)

2010-02-03T23:43:00.000-08:00

If you're tuning in from the New York Times, you probably want to hear more about the infamous Ganko ramen, that ramen shop that "doesn't look like a ramen shop," that "doesn't look like anything at all."

You've seen a photo of that mysterious black tarp, so now would you like to see the inside? I first heard about Ganko from an administrator at Waseda University, who asked me if I had been to the "all black ramen shop with no sign." Intrigued by the challenge, I set off on a quest of discovery, only to find the shop just a few hundred meters from my own place of dwelling. Of course. I never forgot that bowl, but had been to busy banging down new bowls to make it back. Until I found myself escorting NYT photographer Basil Childers there to shoot the story.

If you do go to Ganko, please try and keep it low key. It's a tiny shop with only 4 or 5 seats that eschews most PR and is run by a single old man, so showing up in gaggles and talking loudly would be bad form. Ganko does mean "grumpy" after all, so please tread lightly and slurp softly so this particular ganko old man doesn't regret giving us permission to publicize his shop. At one point, Ganko was a "member's only" ramen shop (no, seriously!), so let's hope he stays public.

Pull back the tarp and step into a narrow, cluttered room that feels more like a 1970s countryside kitchen than a famous restaurant in one of Tokyo's more bustling districts.

The walls are covered with yellowed clippings, old posters, and, in a hallowed place above the door, a photo of the smiling Ichijô Yasuyuki, the original Ganko old man and head cook. Ichijô founded the first Ganko location down the block from this shop about 20 years ago, never putting up a sign, using only the trademark cow bone to show the location of the hidden door. After several location changes, Ichijô, a perpetual ramen drifter, has moved on to other things, but his visage smiles down on every bowl to this day. For a more detailed description of the Ichijô legend, check out this post.

There are now several dozen Ganko locations around the country, though mostly concentrated in northwestern Tokyo. That poster behind the broken fan, next to the boxes of flour, to the left of the Star Trek barbie dolls, is the Ganko extended family tree, detailing each generation and location, as former pupils have gone own to open their own Ganko shops. This tarp is the symbolic and spiritual head shop, the one which has inherited the most direct lineage of Ichijô.

Sit at the counter, drink it all in, and tell the unsmiling chef what you want. There's shio (salt) ramen, shôyu (soy sauce) ramen available with three degrees of fat drizzled on top - assari (thin), chûkan (medium), and kotteri (extra lardy). My personal recommendation is the ebi abura shio ramen - the salt ramen topped with a layer of piping hot shrimp oil.

And here's the bowl you've been hearing about. It looks so spartan, so simple, but Ramen Adventurer Brian calls it the "best in Baba", and hey it must be good, it was featured in the New York Times! Ganko strictly abides by the three guiding principles of ramen, as laid out by Ichijô Yasuyuki himself:

1. The Noodles Must Be Firm!
2. The Soup Must Be Strong and Salty!
3. The Soup Must Be Hot!

I'm happy to report that these principles are firmly followed for every bowl. Ganko's ramen's most famous characteristic is it's "shoppai" quality, an almost sour saltiness that divides ramen fans into "love it" and "hate it" camps. That said, I've yet to meet a hater, and we all slurped in supreme satisfaction. The shrimp oil really takes it to the next level, making this deceptively straightforward bowl into something else altogether.

When you've finished half your bowl, grab the little tupperware container of minced green hot chilis and tap in a spoonful to change the taste of the soup yet again. The spice factor goes great with the astringent acidity of the thin oily soup. And of course I'd be remiss if I didn't mention how firm and tasty these noodles are. Thin and yellow, they look like the crappy mass-produced stuff. But appearances can be deceiving - remember how you're eating inside a tarp?

I'm not sure which is more dazzling, the taste of the soup or the bright sunlight once you step back outside from this "ramen wonderland." Anyone been to any other Ganko branches around town?

ようこそ、ニューヨークタイムズ紙の読者たち！ (Welcome New York Times Readers!)

2010-01-30T01:15:00.000-08:00

A big hello to everyone who's found this blog through the Frugal Traveler Matt Gross' recent Tokyo ramen rundown in the New York Times! And for those regular readers who have no idea what I'm talking about, the excellent article can be found here: One Noodle at a Time in Tokyo. Unfortunately, I was out of town when Matt was here researching the article, but my good buddies Brian over at Ramen Adventures and Keizo at Go Ramen did a bang up job making sure he got the most superb slurps possible while touring Tokyo. The world is starting to realize that ramen is so much more than just "noodles in soup", and it's great to see none other than The Gray Lady get her pages splattered with noodle grease.

Like so many of us, I came to know ramen via the instant stuff at the supermarket, but when I first visited Japan as an exchange student I fell in love with ramen all over again. Fast forward a few years and I'm now a graduate student at Columbia writing a dissertation on modern Japanese literature. Before I came to Tokyo this time around, a friend dared me to eat at all the ramen shops that lined the street leading to the library where I do my research. I took up the challenge and began this blog as Waseda Ramen, cataloging my attempts to eat at the 100 or so shops in my neighborhood. The scope expanded, it became a downright obsession, and now I have *almost* as many ramen-related books on my shelf as Japanese literary anthologies. But if my adviser is reading this, don't worry, dissertation chapter two is underway!

Matt's article does a great job discussing the noodles that criss-cross the streets of Tokyo, but the best part of living in the largest megalopolis on Earth is that there's always a new shop to discover! By some estimates, a new ramen shop opens every single day somewhere in metropolitan Tokyo, and my fellow ramen bloggers and I always have our noses out, our mouths open, and our ears perked to listen for the sound of slurping. I don't have the picture-taking prowess of Ramen Adventures, nor can I give an insider perspective like Go Ramen, but with Ramenate! I like to serve up a lot of background, shop history, funny personal stories, ramen-related cultural commentary and criticism along with the noodles.

Enough chit-chat, eh? I thought to celebrate the occasion I'd do a quick rundown of some of my all-time favorite shops and old posts that give some perspectives on the truly amazing depth and breadth of "noodles in soup!" You already know the shops in the article are good, so here are a few more favorites:

For the meanest bowl of miso (classical division): Sapporo Junren

For the meanest bowl of miso (new wave division): Kururi

For the best bowl of porky tonkotsu eaten in a red-light district: Shinjuku Hitotsubo

For a battle with the most infamous bowl in town: Ramen Jiro

For the fatty fat fattiest bowl out of town: Tsubame-Sanjo Ramen

For enough habaneros to make you see stars: Yagura-tei

For a spicy red bowl fit for Genghis Khan: Moko Tanmen Nakamoto

For ramen without a speck of soup in sight: Bubka

For ramen eaten in the glow of late night neon: Nagi Golden Gai

For ramen that will take you on a time slip: Milk Hall Sakaeya

For ramen that helps you get your veggies: Heibon

For a brief history of ramen in Japan: The Yokohama Raumen Museum

For an archaeological expedition to the origin of the noodle: Ramen on the Silk Road

For an account of what it's like to spend one day on the other side of the counter: The Great Tsukemen Festival

I always love hearing about new noodle finds, so post comments and tell me about some of your favorite bowls in Japan, the US, or anywhere in the world! And if you're in town drop me a line to say hi - I may not always be able to make it out (I do have that dissertation to write...) but maybe we can grab a bowl sometime. If you'd like to contact me directly, my email is nshockey at gmail dot com . There are more bowls of ramen than there are soup stains on my clothes...and that's saying something, so don't stop slurping!

ラーミュンネーションイン韓国、その一 (Ramyunating in Korea, Part 1)

2010-01-26T18:04:00.000-08:00

Obviously, I've spent some time in Japan. And if you've read some of the older posts I put up, you know that I've spent some time in China as well. But for all my pan-Pacific panderings, I had never been to Korea before, until last week. It was a pretty wild trip, one that involved fake electric chairs, humans in raccoon costumes, 1960s psych rock rarities, post-apocalyptic islands, piles of dead monkfish, heated floors, beached North Korean submarines, and, uh, too much rotgut soju alcohol. Oh right, plus RAMYUN!

On my first day in Seoul, I fulfilled a lifelong dream - to go to Lotte World. Like Korean Disneyland but less so, Lotte World is a place I had wanted to visit since I was seven years old and a girl in my 2nd grade class stood up to give her summer vacation report and said: "This summer, I went to South Korea to see my family. We went to Lotte World. It was awesome." And last week, Lotte World (you may know the Lotte corporation from their moderately popular hamburger chain Lotteria) made one man's dreams come true. The only thing that could make the day better was...do I even need to say it?

There are actually tons of places to get Japanese-style ramen in Seoul. It's definitely hot right now, and new ramen places are opening up all the time. I thought about trying out the Korean take on my favorite J-noodles, but deterred by bad memories of would-be ramen in mainland China, decided to take a pass. I wanted noodles how they do in the K - I wanted ramyun! Forunately, my pal A knew just where to take me. Open 24 hours, this place in Seoul's Sinchon district is known locally as "hangover ramen" since it's mega spice quotient is supposed to bust even the toughest day after blues.

I don't know if the proprietress herself runs the ship all 24 hours, but I didn't see anyone else around. I wouldn't be surprised if she sleeps in the room behind the shop - she hasn't looked as young or thin as in this photo in quite some time, methinks.

I don't want to ruffle the feathers of any Korean readers, but I couldn't help shake the feeling that so much in Korea reminded me of either Japan or China. This shop was firmly in the China column, with that great local hole in the wall noodle haunt atmosphere a far cry from the chic counters in Japan. See the pan on the right side of the photo? That's half the kitchen...

...and this is the other half. What kind of ramyun can one cook on this little counter top?

The instant kind! Yep, "ramyun" is about as far from "jikaseimen" (homemade noodles) as you can get. A strong contender for Korean national dish, the spicy Shin Ramyun and its dehydrated brick of noodles are what goes into every bowl. Now, I love Shin Ramyun, and it's probably thanks to the stuff that I ended up the noodle freak I am now. But you're probably wondering - why go to a restaurant to eat instant noodles? I thought we finally had reached a time where people realized that ramen was so much more than the dry stuff? Because no one you know can trick out and transform a bowl of instant noodles like this.

The not-so-little old lady stirs up the soup then tosses in some clams, bean sprouts, kimchi, maybe a bit of lard, plenty of spices...and lots and lots and lots of sliced green chilis. My pal A was taken with trepidation before deciding to take the plunge into this atomic bowl.

On a cold winter's day, not much else can warm your insides like a piping hot bowl of soup stuffed with capsaicin. On the whole, my experience was that Korean food wasn't *that* spicy, but this soup was an exception. Definitely the spiciest thing I'd had in a while, though perhaps not achieving the pure pain and punishment of the "cosmic" miso ramen at Yagura-tei.

And the noodles? Scoff away, but these were boiled just right, not too soft, not too hard. They may not be fresh off the noodle machine, but they have the added benefit of hitting that nostalgic comfort foot pleasure receptor deep in the brian. Ivan Ramen may make some of the best noodles I've ever had, but I didn't eat Ivan's noodles 3 times a week when I was 11 years old.

These nameless noodles were so good that I called for a bowl of rice to dump in and polish off the rest of the spicy broth, chomping almost every last pepper. I feared for the safety of my lower half, but don't worry, these noodles never made it all the way down to my GI tract...

Too bad these noodles can't cure a hangover you haven't gotten yet!

A Quick Check In from the Road...

2010-01-22T06:49:00.001-08:00

Posts have been a bit sporadic of late, but have no fear fellow ramenmenandwomen! I'm currently in the midst of a short trip to South Korea, and regular posting will resume soon. I chose to pass on trying any K-style renditions of Japanese "ramen", but I did have a few tasty bowls of Korean ramyun!

They do stuff here with packaged noodles that would blow your minds (...and tastebuds...and lower intestines!) I'll post those up when I get back, but if you can't wait to expand your own noodle, why not check out a couple old posts about past noodling adventures elsewhere in Asia?

-Journey to the Heartland of the Noodle in Muslim Xinjiang!

-Drool over the Knife-Cut Noodles of Shanxi!

-Experience Total Noodle Overload in Ningxia!

-Gasp in Horror at the Slop Served on Mainland Chinese Airlines!

See y'all soon!

斑鳩 (Ikaruga)

2010-01-13T22:09:00.000-08:00

You may have heard that Japanese people are hella good at writing poetry. Haikus and what have you. I do my research on prose fiction and media studies, so I am in no position to confirm or deny that assessment. I do know enough to tell you, however, that in classical poetry, some of the most important poetic tropes and images are seasonal motifs such as flowers, plants, and birds.

As with poetry, so goes ramen. What could sound more appetizing than a meal at Ikaruga - "Masked Hawfinch"?

Granted, they say the poetry is what's lost in translation, but why would one of the best and most popular shops in Tokyo name itself after an obscure avian?

It just so happens that the reason why the Ikaruga fowl is such a resonant poetic symbol is because it shares its name with the Ikaruga district of the ancient capital of Nara, home to some of the most important sites in Japanese history.

Shôtoku Taishi, the semi-legendary prince said to have introduced Buddhism to Japan from Korea is a giant in historically significant stature, and he's the one that founded Ikaruga Temple, which is now Hôryûji Temple, reliquary of some of the most priceless artifacts of Japanese art and early scriptures. Ikaruga was built, and Japan would never be the same.

But does the same go for Ikaruga, the ramen shop? Me and 25 of my closest friends huddled in the cold one winter evening to find out. Ikaruga won top honors on the 2006 edition of the TV Champion program, a sure way to gain instant fame. The reputation of Ikaruga as a top-flight shop (I couldn't tell you if the Masked Hawfinch is migratory, but you know what I mean) later that year when it won the magazine Tokyo Weekly's "Ramen of the Year" award in the shôyu (soy sauce soup) division.

Located in Kudanshita, just a stone's throw from the Imperial Palace, Ikaruga has become canonical, and has a line longer than that of "unbroken" line of Japan's Emperors. Inside, it's a relaxing atmosphere, and they have customer service down pat.

And here's the famous bowl. Shôyu may it be, it's like no soy sauce ramen I've ever seen or tasted before. The thick noodles sit in a creamy white broth that looks more like a classic tonkotsu (pork marrow) soup with just the right amount of oil. Ikaruga's bowl is one of the most amazingly complex and well-balanced I've ever tasted - this is truly gourmet food. In reality, Ikaruga dishes out their own variety of the ever popular "W" (double) soup style - here it's mild, smooth porky tonkotsu with soy tare (flavor essence) blended with a seafood broth made from the highest quality katsuo (skipjack tuna) and konbu seaweed from the Sea of Okhotsk. And I'm sure there are a few secret ingredients thrown in as well.

What's that slimy green stuff on top? It's tororo konbu, a type of fine algae. I'd never seen it before and ordered it as an extra topping, but I think I might skip it next time. Interesting as it was, it was a bit too...well, algaey for me. Still it added to the overall impression of Ikaruga's as ramen you can eat nowhere else.

Every bite was savored. Every smooth sip sucked down. The egg was one of the most flavorful I've ever had. The noodles perfectly chewy. And no matter how much I rolled that creamy soup around in my mouth I kept finding new accents in it. And yet, as much as is going in there, it's oh so satisfying. This was a truly masterful bowl of ramen.

You best believe this was good to the last drop. One of the best bowls I've ever had, and well worth the wait.

As well-crafted as one of the 7th century Buddhist masterpieces found in its namesake temple, this is one for the ages.

麺彩房 (Mensaibo)

2010-01-12T21:59:00.000-08:00

My neighborhood of Arai Yakushi isn't exactly known as a ramen mecca. In fact, it isn't exactly known at all, considering how many confused looks I get when I tell people where I live. But if you take a look around, we've got a good little grip of solid shops - the original location of tomato ramen RYOMA, a branch of Ganko, the storied station-front shop Yakushi Ôban, and a couple more.

Another of the best known is Mensaibô, a pretty straightforward new school seafood and pork "W" (double) soup shop whose star has been rising. The original location of Mensaibô is right here in Yakushi, but they've recently opened two or three other locations around Tokyo, turning into a bit of a mini-chain in just the last few months.

Inside, you've got pretty standard darkish interior, dark wood chairs, tables and open space in addition to the counter. There are even tatami seats in the back for family dining. This is a ramen shop that anyone can feel comfortable grabbing lunch at on their way to or from picking up groceries at the LIFE supermarket (yes, the name of the supermarket is "life") next door.

The tsukemen here supersede the ramen in popularity, and it had been a while since I had some tasty tsukemen, so I figured I'd go with those. Again, pretty straightforward - a big pile of extra thick noodles served on a fancy ceramic tray...

...and a lightish brown, vinegary, and sweet bowl of soup for dipping in the classic Taishôken mode. With about 99 percent of tsukemen shops, you know exactly what to expect, and it's this. Fat noodles and lots of them, a mild seafood broth with just a hint of spice, the same taste you can get at any other tsukemen place. I'd had this bowl before, at Himawari, at Yasubee, at Benten, at any other of the bazillion tsukemen shops that serve basically this precise dish. This is what everyone wants to eat all the time, apparently.

Then it hit me. Tsukemen isn't really competing with ramen. It's competing with soba. All those people going into shops to eat their identical tsukemen bowls weren't ramen fans who switched teams; they were the type you'd usually find at a soba or udon shop for lunch, getting the simple yet tasty, unchallenging yet satisfying bowl of noodles that you find at every other soba or udon shop. But tsukemen is a bit more fun, a bit richer in taste, a bit more interesting than your dad's musty old soba. And on the shop side, it doesn't hurt that tsukemen customers turn tables faster than ramen slurpers do. Or that it's easier to make and costs less to produce. Or that there's a tried and true model to follow. Hence the popularity of tsukemen. Totally tasty, totally satisfying, but at the same time, I think I'm good on this stuff for a while. There are so many more exciting bowls waiting out there!

らーめん一兆 (Ramen Iccho)

2010-01-11T21:44:00.000-08:00

I had just polished off a fatty boom batty bowl of Ramen Jirô in Ogikubo, then drank some of the best beer I ever did taste following my buddy Junior Ken's stompin' blues show with the impressive Samm Bennett. But when Ken and company suggested a quick bowl before last train, who was I to say no?

One of Ken's favorite local shops in his hood of Asagaya is Ichô, and his picks thus far had been excellent, taking me to Kôkaiya and Seiya on past outings. We had tried to eat at Ichô on a few other occasions, but the master's got a bad back and the shop tends to be closed at weird hours. Today the apprentice was behind the counter, so we were in luck.

It was quite the party atmosphere inside, being a few days before the New Years holidays, and a couple of rounds of lime sour cocktails went around. So much for that last train...

I got the kuro goma tantanmen (Chinese-style noodles in black sesame soup), and it was just the thing for absorbing the booze in the belly. If you're giving me black sesame anything, it doesn't take a lot to get me on board. The big cuts of bok choy were great, especially since when you eat as much ramen as I do, you don't tend to get all your veggies. Do onions count?

The soup was sweet with sesame, but a bit overly salty. Ken suspects that the young trainee doesn't have quite the same balanced holistic vision of the bowl that the regular head cook does. My tastebuds were past differentiation at this point. Maybe not a gourmet slurp, but the good slurp is the one that gives you what you need, and my body was craving sodium.

These guys didn't seem too disappointed either. Here's to hoping the master's back heals!

ラーメン次郎荻窪店 (Ramen Jiro Ogikubo)

2010-01-10T21:25:00.000-08:00

I can't remember what I was up to the day I ate this bowl, but I seem to remember being in a somewhat pissy mood for some reason or other. Maybe because the sun was setting and I somehow had forgotten to eat lunch?

But there's an easy solution to that problem, and its name is J-î-r-o. I had identified my empty stomach as the cause of my discomfort and decided to eat at the next ramen shop I saw, whatever it was. Dô----n. That's the sound of a huge bowl of ramen hitting the counter, and that's the sound my belly (and heart) made when it jumped at the site of the Ogikubo branch of the infamous Ramen Jirô.

My previous Jirô escapade had been a trip to the original shop in Mita, and I've banged down past bowls at the Takadanobaba and Shinjuku Otakibashi branches. Jirô, known for its massive size and incredibly oily demeanor, is not the kind of place to enter unless you're on an empty stomach. Fortunately, I was, so I slid on in. Each Jirô branch is run by a former student of the original Mr. Jirô, Yamada Takumi, who then goes forth to open his own shop. Thus, each shop has its own character and some variations in the menu. The Takadanobaba branch is quite orthodox, and the one in Otakibashi is extra clean and friendly. The Ogikubo branch is a bit funky. Though Jirô's have a reputation for unfriendliness, I've never felt it so much as here.

Three old ladies (!?!?!) were in front of me in line, and clearly did not know proper Jirô ordering protocol, resulting in the cook snapping at them to wait their turn before asking for no garlic. When I asked why the bathroom was locked, the cook gave me an exhausted look and proceeded to jimmy open the door with a screwdriver.

But what's on the second floor up those spiral stairs?

I found out a few minutes later, when the staff helper shuffled slowly down holding a sack of pork parts. A hunchbacked staff helper. No, really, a guy with a hunch back. He proceeded to shuffle back up the stairs carrying some crates, then shuffled back down again to receive his daily ramen ration to go slurp in solitude back in the belfry. Just what's going on here?!?

Even weirder is the fact that this is one of the only Jirô locations that provides amenities for the customer. Tissues to wipe up the grease!

Cups of water for those who didn't come prepared with their own bottles! Just what kind of crazy Jirô is this?!

A crazy good one, that's what! Everytime I eat Jirô, brutal as it is, I can't help but love it all over again. That oil! That grease! Those massive toppings! The heaps of raw garlic! That special tangy and sweet magical soy sauce that no one else has!

Blowing out your arteries never tasted so damn good. Yeah, that's a chunk of lard.

But each Jirô puts their own special touches on, and Ogikubo really outdoes themselves, hunchbacks and assholes they may be. 20 yen in cash gets you a little helping of spicy red chilis soaked in their own oil. Perhaps the best cost performance on a single topping I've ever seen, these packed some punch.

An additional 50 yen gets you an almost raw egg to break on top of your massive piles of noodles sitting in melted pork, just in case your heart was still beating before. This stuff really puts Ogikubo Jirô in the top tier of its oft-celebrated and imitated chain.

And of course, the rough cut noodles are still as thick and chewy as all-get-out. I don't know what else there is to say about Jirô that hasn't been said already. You love it or you hate it, but it is nothing other than a force to be reckoned with.

And this time I didn't even have to run to the toilet the next morning!

行くぜ！お台場ラーメンパーク、その二！(Let's Go! Odaiba Ramen Park! Part Two!)

2010-01-09T00:04:00.000-08:00

We banged down our bowls, but Keizo and I had just begun at the Odaiba Ramen Park event. Each month until April, 10 shops bring their best to the Fuji TV patio and set up stands to show what they got. With 10 shops on offer, it was a good thing we had both skipped breakfast.

Round Two - ready...faito!

I decided to get my next bowl at a stall featuring a special collaboration between Menya Ueda and Sairokku Gundan. I had been hearing a lot about Ueda recently, since it's one of the shops critic Ishigami Hideyuki is pimping hardest, and the fact that Ms. Ueda was teamed up with a shop named "Psylocke Military Squad" didn't make it any less appealing.

Psylocke was the foxy, vaguely ethnic femme fatale from X-Men, and she was all X-lady. Her special power was shooting purple flames from her hands that she generated through her psychokinetic powers.

Oh fuzz! Looks like Psylocke is really here! That's Ms. Ueda, who schlepped out from Saitama to show off her flames. Ueda's bowl is a "kogashi shôyu", (seared soy), in which a thin layer of oil is placed atop the soup and then, um, blowtorched.

You better stand back when these flames get going, because they leap big. The Ueda / Psylocke team brought their own special metal bowls and trays, since there's no way that the standard plastic bowls could stand up to this kind of psychokinesis. Ms. Ueda herself seems like quite the tough older lady, the kind who you'd expect to find behind a bar counter lovingly giving her customers shit and cracking jokes as she served drinks. Except she's serving ramen. "You ain't never tasted ramen like this before, sonny," she told me as she served my bowl.

Verily, the smoky taste worked well with the strong shôyu, making for a bowl of soup that was thin but big flavored. Maybe not quite as deliciously decadent as the burnt miso at Gogyô (but then again what is), but Ueda / Psylocke's barbecue'd bowl worked for me. Not such a big fan of the cabbage, but I dug the toasted rice krispies tossed on top.

Unfortunately, the noodles were a bit lacking. Thin and straight, they were firm, but in a way that was almost hard. "These noodles suck," Keizo declared. I wouldn't go that far, but they were definitely the weak component to an otherwise strong bowl. Not that I told that to Ms. Ueda when she called out "What'd ya think kid?" at me from across the patio. I don't want to get blowtorched!

But it was easy for Keizo to be critical since he had just pulled what was easily the best bowl of the day. I had seen the name Nidaime Tsujita around a lot recently, but I had no idea what we were in store for. Both Keizo and I were totally broadsided by this bowl of incredibly rich, deep, strong, and oily miso. It's the only bowl of Sapporo-style miso I've ever had to rival Junren, and Keizo said with gravity "this is very, very close to the level of Sumire Honten", thee Sapporo shop par excellence. There was so much going on in the bowl that it was hard to keep track - a complex miso blend, a dash of sweet powdered aonori seaweed, a generous hunk of minced ginger. It even had a rich winter stew taste that made me wonder if there might be some wine in the broth.

The noodles were yellow and curly, and just chewy enough. Nidaime Tsujita is amazing. We both couldn't get over just how good this bowl was. It's really something to take a formula as fixed as that of Sapporo ramen and take it to another level like this - working within a model without seeming derivate. Kudos to Tsujita, whose star is on the rise. Of all the bowls I tasted that day, this is the one I wanted to run out to eat again. I believe the main shop is in the Ogawamachi area of the Kanda district.

After a brief break, we decided to grab the same bowl for round three - Bee Hive, which hails from the village (yes, it is officially designated a village) of Chôsei, located on the beach in eastern Chiba Prefecture.

I'm guessing there's not a whole lot to do around those parts, since apparently this chicken soup shop is also a part time pool hall.

Beside having the cutest girls, Bee Hive also offers...

...a mild chicken stock shio (salt) soup with a few traces of white truffle oil. This is definitely new-style shio, with a veritable salad on top, especially after I added a few roasted cherry tomatoes for an extra topping. Definitely tasty, but anything would have been a bit underwhelming after the one-two punch of Tsujita's ginger miso. The tomato juices went a long way in perking the bowl up, and it was a smooth and easy bowl to down.

The noodles were good, if a bit soft, and the overall impression was of the new breed of "healthy ramen." While I wouldn't kick this ramen out of bed (and I definitely wouldn't kick the girls working out), we both agreed it probably isn't worth the trip to Chiba.

Slurp, y'all.

Lesser, or perhaps thinner men would have quit there. We both wanted to eat more ramen, but were both totally stuffed, so we did what anyone would have done - wander aimlessly through deserted shopping malls for four hours, play arcade games, and hope that enough space opened up in our stomachs to eat more. We left the patio behind and headed to Odaiba's own "ramen road" - the Saikyô Ramen Kokugikan, the "National Ramen Stadium of the Strongest." In which the Aqua City mall takes turns hosting groups of six shops from around the country, not unlike at the Ramen Museum or Shinagawa Shinatatsu area.

Quite a selection of shops have been through these moderately-hallowed halls...

...and the current batch doesn't look to be messing around either.

The concept for Râkoku, as the "Stadium" is nicknamed, is the Meiji era, the late 19th century when ramen was first introduced to Japan.

This ladies don't strike me as the ramen type, but whatever. I'm sure they pushed aside their petticoats to gruzzle the occasional bowl from time to time.

These guys however, strike me as the ramen type. We settled on the shop run by the rakish chap with the hat on the left. Satô Naoji began travelling the country to eat ramen when he was 16, claiming to have downed over 1000 bowls. His main shop is Gokuichi, located in Niigata Prefecture, but he's recently been trying to move into the central Tokyo scene.

Too bad his ramen sucks. I try to be judicious with my criticism, but this ramen wasn't just disappointing or mediocre, it was down right bad. Rather than draw of the underappreciated tradition of Niigata's local fatty Tsubame ramen or miso curry ramen, the ramen at Gokuichi is nothing more than a poor imitation of Nantsuttei's. Everything about this bowl tasted cheap, and it left an actively bad aftertaste in my mouth. I don't mean that metaphorically - each bite had an unpleasantly bitter almost chemical taste. The addition of some tableside spicy Korean miso at least hid that taste, but it couldn't save the bowl. This was the worst bowl I'd had in a long time.

It was a bummer to end the day on a weak note, but we had gotten to slurp some good stuff. I'm excited to see what next month's batch brings, so keep checking back for more from future rounds of the Odaiba Ramen Park. Oh yeah, and we stopped off for beers in Shinbashi, so I guess the day may have ended on a weak note, but the night started on a good one!

行くぜ！お台場ラーメンパーク、その一！(Let's Go! Odaiba Ramen Park! Part One!)

2010-01-08T23:43:00.000-08:00

I get around a lot, but Tokyo is one massive megalopolis, so there are inevitably parts of town I don't find myself in too often. One of those areas is Odaiba, one of the artificial islands sitting in the water at the edge of this other city by the bay.

In 1853 Commodore Perry rolled up with his "black ships", big American boats armed with cannons, and said to the last of the Tokugawa Shoguns, "open up your ports to us...or else." Although this marked for the beginning of the end for Tokugawa rule and the beginning of the beginning for Japan's movements towards nation-state status, the Tokugawa at least took precautions to make sure other countries couldn't use the same kind of gunboat diplomacy. Hence, the building of the maritime fortress islands of Odaiba in 1854.

Fast forward 150 or so years. Odaiba is now essentially one big floating mall, housing multiple massive American-style indoor shopping complexes, entertainment facilities, and a TV station. I mean what was Tokyo going to do, NOT turn this floating bulwark against foreign invasion into a massive center for conspicuous consumption?

So yeah, I'm not such a big fan of Odaiba. But sometimes it's sheer ridiculosity manages to even out do itself, like when they manage to line up a view at once encompassing the fake Liberty Bell, the fake Statue of Liberty, the fake Brooklyn Bridge, and the fake Eiffel Tower.

Or like this summer when they built a life-sized Gundam robot to bring a message of environmental awareness to the people of Tokyo. "For 30 years, Gundam has been saving the earth, but now it's your turn. You can start by unplugging your fridge when you go on vacation and using low-flow shower heads." No, really.

But until mid-April you've got an even better reason to visit Odaiba - the Odaiba Ramen Park, a four month event in which various famous shops take turns setting up stalls on the patio outside the Fuji TV station. The current iteration lasts until I believe January 11th, after which a new batch of shops will take over for another month.　The Odaiba Ramen Park event seems to be a response to the Great Tsukemen Festival, at which I got to spend a day in the kitchen with the team from Ivan Ramen. That event was sponsored by TV Asahi, so this seems to be Fuji TV's competing event.

This time around, the man picking the shops is Ishigami Hideyuki, one of the more visible critics on the scene. Definitely an omnipresent media personality, Ishigami fashions himself as the kind of bad boy ramen critic, rarely smiling and using the rhetoric of general badassery to express his thoughts on noodling. He came to prominence as the ramen judge for the TV Champion show, which has christened many popular shops and thrown them to superstardom. Honestly, he strikes me as a bit of a wiener, but let's see how his pics at the Park play out! Check Keizo's blog for the full rundown of shops.

Keizo and I rode the monorail out to the island one morning to be there when the park opened at 11. Compared to the maddening crowds of the Great Tsukemen Festival, this was a much more laid back affair, mostly serving those already in Odaiba and a few freaks like us willing to trek out for our fix. We strategized for a minute, then decided on what our first bowls would be.

I hit up Gen'ei, a Fukuoka-based shop famous for their experimental creations as well as their straightforward Hakata tonkotsu (pork bone ramen). Gen'ei are the guys who provided the soup half at the limited time only shop FUTO, though I didn't realize that at the time.

Being early, I had a chance to chat with the cooks for a few minutes while I waited for my bowl.

When that bowl came out it looked a bit like this - hand-kneaded noodles sitting in a light shio (salt) soup made fragrant with shrimp oil and broth, topped with a few delicate slivers of onion, chili, and greens, as well as pork short ribs that went straight into Keizo's belly. The soup was mild but complex, and had a kind of "Asian" flavor for lack of a better word. What really made it was the secret ingredient of Kabosu, a rare citrus fruit found in Northern Kyushu - the dash of tangy yet sweet acid brought it all together.

But the noodles really took it to another level. Very fresh and soft yet chewy, I watched the crew hand knead them before my eyes. Some of the best of the day, these convinced me that when I finally make it to Fukuoka I gotta be sure and stop by Gen'ei. Big thumbs up!

Let's see what Keizo is bringing back for his first bowl!

He's got a bowl of tomato ramen from Menya Shichisai, topped with some "high collar" cheese. The Shichisai shop serves some absolutely fantastic shôyu (soy sauce) ramen with top notch noodles, but this was merely tasty. Satisfying, but it really just tasted a lot like ramen noodles in tomato soup. I got much love for Shichisai, but I expected a bit more from the high standard they set at their head shop.

There's a lot more noodling to come, so stay tuned for round two of Odaiba ramen reportage tomorrow!

Cique

2010-01-07T23:35:00.000-08:00

Ramen Cique.

Now here's a shop I don't know a whole lot about. Why not? Because Cique categorically refuses media coverage and doesn't allow magazine features or TV stories. So how do I know about it? A few years back, ramen critic Hantsu Endô wrote a book featuring only just such shops. The book is out of print, and I haven't found a copy, but I did read a blurb mentioning that it featured shops like Cique in Minami-Asagaya.

I'm there! Cique isn't in any "cique"-retive location, but found on the north side of the Ôme Kaidô thoroughfare, just across the street from Obama Ramen near the Minami-Asagaya subway station.

Inside, Cique is chic, falling into one of the category of "ramen shop that doesn't feel like a ramen shop." Fancy cast-iron lamps, marble floor, bossa nova tunes, and plenty of open space, it's at once neighborhood shop and hip destination munch.

Cique offers both shôyu (soy sauce) and shio (salt) varietals, but I decided to go with the latter. A nice colorful pile of vegetable toppings gives it a healthy look, and at first glance it seems a little bit too much like the by-now-famous shio bowl at Ivan Ramen, right down to the roast tomato. But Cique has (to the best of my knowledge) been around at least as long, and I think it's just two great ramen-addled minds thinking alike.

Cique's soup is some of the lightest and most refreshing I've ever tasted. It's probably largely chicken stock, and it manages to avoid any trace of heaviness while at the same time not tasting thin or weak. The egg was top notch, and the tomato, while not up to Ivan standards, was fresh and juicy.

Hmm, even the noodles look a bit like Ivan's, thin and straight, with brown speckles of whole wheat. But again, the overall impression was different enough that I'm withholding any suspicions. I wonder if Cique makes their own noodles the way Ivan does? Just soft enough, these go down easy, and you can grab a different hunk of veggie with each bite.

And if "Cique" tastes a bit "weak" for you, you can always dab on a bit of the yuzu koshô (citron pepper paste) provided tableside. I don't know how they make that stuff, but it makes just about anything taste better, and gives the mild soup a bit more tang. A very solid bowl, Cique definitely belongs on the list of tasty new-school shio shops, along with the likes of Ivan, AFURI, and SOU. Oh wait, they don't let anyone put them on lists...but at least they let me snap a few pics! And I found myself still licking my lips ten minutes later - never a bad thing.