Archive for the ‘Japan’ Category
Let me start with a corny haiku I wrote a long time ago for ramen.
I cuddle your warmth
And savour your essence
You flow lovingly
That was the first, and last, haiku I have ever written. I’ve never fancied myself a poet – let’s face it – there is no talent in that department. In fact, I didn’t even get the number of syllables right for a proper haiku. But that’s not what’s important. What is important here is I am about to tell about all the ramen we ate in Japan.
(A lunch deal we couldn’t resist in Asakusa, Tokyo)
Hungry, cold and slightly lost while trying to find Sensoji (Yes, the big huge temple you couldn’t possibly miss. Yes, we did miss it), we stumbled upon a sign that read… well we don’t know what it read. All we saw was a picture of a ramen and a fried rice. Who were we to tempt fate.
(Negi ramen)
Josh had wanted the negi ramen – with shoyu base soup and finely sliced Japanese leek. Delicious.
(Chashu ramen)
I opted for the advertised lunch set which consisted of chashu (roast pork) ramen with the usual accompaniment of seafood and menma (bamboo shoot). Imagine if you will – just a random ramen shop* the size of my living room – and already this was the best ramen I ever had at that point. The best, though, was yet to come.
Served with a little bowl of Japanese fried rice. Very simple with a bit of egg and pork. What else do you need?
(More chashu ramen, this time in Hakone)
Up in the hot spring town of Hakone, our thirst for ramen didn’t go away. We visited the local ramen shop, which had a large friendly panda sign out front.
(Corn ramen set with gyoza, rice and a side salad)
I ordered the dinner set (I am a set girl) which consisted of corn ramen, rice (rice!?!), gyoza and a tiny side salad. It did seem that gyoza (pan-fried Japanese pork and chive dumplings) are a traditional accompaniment to ramen wherever we went.
Zooming in on the corn ramen. Whoever came up with the idea to put buttered corn into a ramen – genius. This ramen was slightly disappointing to us. But we were in a tourist town and there just weren’t a lot of choices.
This gorgeous, and unique, ramen, on the other hand, was found up in Odawara. It was different from any other ramen I’ve ever had. Each ramen in Japan has their regional origin and each town seemed to do their ramen a bit differently.
The stock was light shio (salt) broth with chashu, a large slice of grilled fish cake, a tiny boiled quail egg, beansprouts, wood ear mushrooms and mitsuba – Japanese parsley.
A close up of the mitsuba – Japanese parsley. Because it’s so pretty.
Back in Osaka, we were desperate to try the infamous Ippudo Ramen – a Hakata-style ramen with their unique noodles and their porky, fatty broth. But of course, with our luck, they closed down for the Christmas/New Year period. If you were standing outside the Osaka Ippudo on New Year’s Eve in 2008, you would have found two sad honeymooning tourists pining just outside.
(Does someone know where this place is in Osaka? We want to go back!)
So naturally, we ventured out into the dodgy lane ways of the pachinko arcades (don’t look at me like I think sleazy Japanese lane ways full of gambling dens, hustlers and their sex shops are a tourist attraction) – we went past this shop front. My quick eyes (thank you, thank you) spotted a picture of the longed-for white broth and soft boiled eggs. Excited, I dragged Josh in.
(a ramen shop counter in Osaka)
This place, believed it or not, turned out to be very special for three reasons. Firstly, it was the only food shop in Japan in our two-week trip that gave us non-disposable chopsticks. Secondly, it was the only food shop we went back for the second time and thirdly, it was the best damn ramen we have ever had.
(gyoza with generous sprinkling of spring onion)
There I went giving away the ending again. Let’s start over. We blundered through our ordering as usual (‘ramen kudasai!‘ – seriously sometimes I’m amazed we even got fed the right stuff at all). We ordered the gyoza – just because we were extra. They were average. I’m sure they were mass-produced. It was a grubby looking ramen joint in a sleazy-looking pachinko arcade, so we didn’t expect much.
But then THIS arrived. A bowl of rich, creamy, porky broth. One sip and I was totally sold. It was all about the broth. Yes, I drank the whole bowl of broth. Nothing is too rich when it’s this good. The noodles were al dente (or whatever the Japanese equivalent is called), the charshu melted in the mouth, the egg seasoned. Damn.
Did I mention it was so good I actually wrote a poem about it?
While we missed out on the famous Ippudo, we found our beautiful tonkotsu ramen in a grubby little ramen shop in a pachinko arcade. It was so good we went back two days in a row (and would have gone back again had we not left Osaka the day after). I studied the boys making their ramen. It seemed like they actually had a bag of concentrated broth that they made up their soup with. So it was even possible that they used a mass-produced starter or this could be a chain shop. But I didn’t care. We loved it.
So back in Tokyo, we were keen to repeat the experience. Unfortunately, it was a downer. The broth wasn’t flavoursome and the chashu was actually cold. It was one of the worst ramen experience I ever had.
The condiments consisted of garlic puree (didn’t try it), pickled ginger (don’t like it, ruins the dish) and some sort of unknown icky looking pickle (yuck). I suppose it didn’t help that our last ramen was just so splendid.
And thus, there was no happy ending to this post. But we can’t have it all.
Up next on Spatula, Spoon and Saturday, Food, Love & Japan: the Bento Edition.
* I previously wrote about this ramen in Japan Food Review: Our Very First Ramen in Asakusa.
Previously on Food, Love & Tokyo (Part I), we had touched on yakitori, roast chicken, supermarket, ice cream, gyudon, soba and convenience store. I would like to dedicate this one to sushi lovers everywhere.
(Aburi sushi – sake, maguro and engawa)
We start with Midori Sushi – a well known sushi train restaurant in Shibuya for its quality but inexpensive sushi. We were warned of a queue out front (and there was) but luckily the queue moved fairly fast especially there were just the two of us. We started off with trio of aburi sushi which were fatty pieces of fish that had been quickly seared, presumably with a blow torch. I believe they were salmon (sake), yellow-fin tuna (maguro) and halibut (engawa).
Not too sure what these were.
A line of salmon nigiri flying past and honeydew melons. I have never seen honeydew on a sushi train line before.
A hit of sake (Japanese rice wine) served in the traditional wooden box. It was the first time I drank sake served from a wooden box cup (masu). I have to say I’m not a fan unfortunately because all I could taste was the wood.
Hotate – Japanese scallops. So fresh. So luscious. So sweet. Like lollies.
I had no idea what these were. They were some sort of rather large shellfish that I have never seen in Melbourne. We weren’t quite game to try it. Or rather Josh wasn’t game to try it and I just couldn’t eat both of them.
I think these were the halibut (engawa) again but I don’t remember eating them. No actually I don’t think they are.
We also drank the complimentary green tea – the green tea powder and cups (along with chopsticks, soy sauce, wasabi and dishes) were placed in in front of us. It took me quite a while to figure out that you were supposed to make your own tea by mixing the green tea powder with the boiling water that came out of the tap.
Almond pudding and fruit salad – we didn’t have it. It just looked interesting enough to take a photo of. Just not to eat.
(Crab meat and kani miso sushi)
Don’t let the repulsive looking grey sludge put you off – kani miso (‘crab miso‘) is basically the most beautiful essence of crab. Often translated as crab liver or crab brain, oh who the hell cares what it is? It is absolutely delicious. So rich and creamy – absolute beautiful essence of a crab. Josh absolutely refused to touch it. So more for me.
Koroke – or Japanese croquette. Something crunchy and warm to contrast with the cold, soft raw fish.
One of the stars of the show – Japanese prawns. Don’t let the red colour fool you. They were fresh and raw and just so so beautiful. I don’t think Josh touched this either.
As you can see, I didn’t manage to take a picture of every single dish. Suffice to say we ate a lot! The coolest thing was when it was time to pay, they piled all the plates in a single tower and ran a scanner through them. No counting! Super cool.
The menu and pricing (as of 2008).
Moving on to more supermarket sight seeing.
We discovered the most beautiful giant, plum-sized, strawberries – 198 yen each. Ouch. Bear in mind that Australian dollar in 2008 were not as strong as it is now.
Look at how expensive they were! We did end up buying a box of slightly cheaper variety and by god they were the sweetest, juiciest, most strawbbery-ish strawberries ever. And they weren’t even the super expensive ones!
Since we’ve been through the highs – may I present the lows: prawn cutlet burger from MOS Burger. I have heard nothing but great things about this burger but it was thoroughlydisappointing. Very average indeed.
Cheeseburger with spicy sauce, again, from MOS Burger. Believe it or not, the best thing from this burger was the tomato slice. The rest were rather average as well. Ah well, you can’t have it all in Japan.
One cannot possibly go to Harajuku without trying the famous Japanese crepes.
Even the crepe making girl had a fabulous haircut – that was when I decided that I absolutely must get my hair done in a hair salon in Harajuku. And I did. But this is not a hair blog! Suffice to say it was an amazing haircut.
Because I am slightly boring, I settled for custard, banana and ice cream. It was good. But believe it or not, it wasn’t actually better than Harajuku Crepe in Melbourne Central. I was slightly disappointed.
Josh ordered this peach and strawberry ice cream crepe – because it was fruity and colourful. Did I mention my husband is a bit of a fruit loop?
My friend, Sayaka, who I went to high school with and happened to be in town had ordered strawberry cheesecake, strawberry sauce and whipped cream crepe. I think hers was the best.
Kampai! Bottoms up!
Stay tuned for the next installment of Food, Love & Japan where we sampled the ramen!
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I think it’s about time I share you the rest of the photos from our honeymoon trip. Granted, it was a while ago but still better late than never (although my English teacher Mr Cadman used to say ‘better never late!’ – wait have I said that before?) Since I never got around to writing more individual posts about Japan, I will just split them into cities.
This one, and the next one, and possibly the one after that, will be all about Tokyo – my favourite Japanese city. Yes, they will be epic posts.
We’ll start off with some pictures from the small supermarket near our hotel.
Wagyu, baby!
Sashimi and seafood counter. Wow.
We were in Japan around Christmas time. It seems like chicken is what the Japanese associate with Christmas. Every supermarket we went to (hey don’t look at me like I think a foreign supermarket is a tourist attraction!) they had a chicken counter like this.
Moving on to a food hall at the bottom of a department store. Tokyo department stores seem to have large food halls located in the building somewhere. The array of foods for take away and fresh ingredients were amazing. Check out the size of this crab!
Don’t ask me what these were! I have no idea. I should have taken more photos but I was just so overwhelmed that, for once, I didn’t manage to take pictures. Note: Japanese tourists in Japan act like Japanese tourists everywhere else. I would totally not have been out of place snapping pictures of everything.
More fish. I wonder if these are meant to be eaten as sashimi. Because in Japan, you just never know.
Moving on to the outdoors, wandering the streets of Tokyo.
Vending machines in Japan are just too awesome. So bright. So colourful. I just wanted to try them all. And I’m really not into sweet drinks.
Various soft serve flavours in an ice cream shop in Asakusa (it was winter!) – with flavours like green tea, black sesame, sweet potato, lavender, miso, brown rice, rose, grape, wasabi, purple sweet potato, yuzu and almond, who wouldn’t want one! I went for lavender – which was purple (tick), strange (tick) and very very lavender-y. Too awesome.
Japanese Black
