First Meal in Japan

What’s the first thing you would eat in Tokyo? 

After 11 hours on a plane and 2 hours in bumper to bumper traffic getting to our hotel—I was ready to call it a night.  Sure, it was only 6 pm, but since Tokyo is 17 hours ahead, that’s—quick, figure that one out—um, 1 am in San Diego.  But, no, my husband wouldn’t let me go to sleep, so we left the hotel and we headed out in search of the perfect comfort food for that long, cold night:  ramen noodles. 

The concierge had directed us to a place just 2 blocks from the hotel.  We passed a Denny’s and, of course, a Starbucks on the way.  Fortunately she had given us a good map, because the narrow shop had no English name on the front.  We weren’t sure we had arrived at Muso noodle shop until we stepped inside. 

The place was tiny--about 10 stools along the counter.  The two young chefs working in the small kitchen directly behind the bar greeted us.

We started to take a seat but the female chef pointed us back toward a machine in the front.  Apparently we were to buy a ticket first and then hand that to them. 

Sounds simple enough, right? 

There was only one problem.  Despite the encouraging English words “Ticket Vendor Food Ticket,” the entire menu was in Japanese.  Now what? 

While we were pondering this and trying to devise some logical system for guessing (were the pink buttons for pork? blue for beef?), a couple of other customers came in.  We stepped aside and watched what they ordered.  The first guy pushed a button in the upper left corner.  650 yen ($5.50).

The other guy chose something in the 4th row for 700 yen.  Well, why not?  We decided to have what they were having.

We handed over our tickets and found two empty stools.  The woman behind the counter went to work, putting two handfuls of noodles into the cooker behind her.  The machine looked like a deep-fat fryer, only filled with water instead of oil.  Tall, conical metal baskets about 4 inches wide were plunged down into boiling water.  When their timer went off (about 2 minutes later), the baskets popped back up.  She tossed the noodles in a bowl to which she had added the miso base, and added broth, green onions, and meat. 

My ramen, the more expensive one, came with a slice of pork in a spicy miso broth.  My husband’s, shown in the photo at the top of this post, was milder and served with a hard-boiled egg and a slice of toasted seaweed.  The noodles were slightly different, too.  Mine were thick and wavy.  His were thin, like angel hair pasta.

I leaned over my steaming hot bowl.  With my chopsticks, I lifted a bunch of noodles to my mouth, but they were too hot to eat.  I tried to take the example from the Japanese man seated to my left and slurp the noodles, drawing in air to cool them off, but all I got was a burned tongue.  Rookie!

The ramen were served with a glass of ice water and upon request, rice. Hey, how come they got some and we didn’t, we wondered, noticing the others around us with bowls of rice.  We pointed and were quickly rewarded.  “Free,” our chef told us, the one English word she seemed to know. 

Since my husband loves spicy food, I traded and gave him mine my ramen. Both were fantastic, however.  For someone used to instant ramen (I lived off them while pulling all-nighters in college), this was a revelation.  The noodles were perfectly cooked—fresh and tender, yet still chewy.  The fresh scallions were a nice contrast, giving off a heady scent of onion in the rising steam before sinking and surrendering their flavors to the broth.  The broth was balanced, neither too sweet nor salty. The only thing I didn’t really like was the thin slice of pork, which I found rather dry and flavorless. 

Interestingly enough, after I had finished off the noodles, I tried to eat the rest of the broth with my spoon, but I found it too fatty to eat on its own.  It needed the plain noodles to balance its richness.

Ten minutes after we sat down, we were done.  The chefs shouted farewells and we headed out happily into the cold Tokyo night with warm, full bellies. 

Comments

[Kirk]

Hi Angie - Sounds like you'll have a whole new standard for ramen when you return to San Diego.

[Darla]

Oh I'm so glad you're keeping your blog up while you're in Japan! I was hoping you would. My husband spent a few weeks in Japan in college, before I knew him, I'll have to ask him he ever had real ramen noodles! Have a great time!

[Angie]

Kirk:

Yes, it's a definite improvement over the instant variety. I liked them back then, but my tastes have changed--I find them much too salty now and the noodles too mushy. I wish I could stay in Tokyo for a few more weeks just eating and comparing all the different types of ramen.

Darla:
Thanks--I'm glad I can post here, too. Free internet access at the hotel! Otherwise I would have a huge backlog and would never end up posting any of it (as on my recent trip to Italy). I always say, write while the ramen is hot!