I ate the ice cream ramen. My hand is the one on the left, by the way. I was really surprised how small this shop was. I think it could only seat six or seven people at the counter.

It was an incredibly hot day that day, so my review might be slightly skewed by that, but, I actually thought it was pretty good. Sure, ramen and ice cream don't exactly go together like chocolate and marshmallows (yea, I don't know why I was thinking about s'mores right now), but I came out feeling refreshed. By the way, apparently the chef's reccomendation is the purple ramen, if you're ever in the neighborhood. It changes color (and maybe flavor?) over time.

I guess this is as good a place as any to mention that I also had the pleasure of trying ice ramen in Nara. Ice ramen is normal ramen chilled with ice cubes and served, soup and all (ice cubes included). Eat it fast or the ice cubes will melt and the soup will get watery. Actually, to say it's regular ramen is not giving it due honor. The chef uses vegetables, like cucumber, and diced egg like the kind you get at sushi (slightly sweet), that would only really go with, and which are complemented by, a cold dish. Quite refreshing on a hot day, but again, because the ice cubes melt, I didn't end up drinking my soup like I usually do (I didn't drink the ice-cream ramen soup either :-/).

Maybe I'll make my own some day on a hot summer day...

Bacon Ramen in Kyoto

I found a tiny ramen-ya in Kyoto south of the train station and ordered a bowl of tonkotsu ramen. You know what? It tasted a lot like the bacon ramen I tried. And it was only 400 yen per bowl. I definitely want to go back. :)

It was a little greasy, but good. I felt like I had pizza-face afterwards, but I am not complaining. It also definitely had a black pepper hint. Gochisousama!

Awesome ramen pic 2

This is why ramen in Japan just totally blows my mind again after I get used to ramen in LA. Unfortunately, I don't get to try this; I just get to drool over the pics. Look at this and think about all the ramen you eat in LA. It's like comparing your child's refrigerator art to a Mona Lisa. You love your kids doodles of dinosaurs, but c'mon, it's not exactly inspiring. I think this is a good analogy. In Tokyo, ramen is an art. Even the presentation is perfected. I got these pics from this site.

The shop is called Tsubomi (蕾), which means flower bud. There's a picture of the storefront below. It's located in Oimachi (大井町) which is in the Shinagawa district (品川区) of Tokyo. This particular dish, which is a Tonkotsu-shoyu (pork bone and soy sauce) soup is only served on Saturday evenings, at the customer's request (i.e., it's not on the menu). The man posting about it has gone every weekend since they started serving it. :D

Kiku ramen shop (菊や)

This is the mother load of ramen stories. There is a ramen shop in the Adachi ward (足立区) of Tokyo. It has the largest mind-boggling array of weird ramen I've seen yet. I got most of my information reading through this delightful webpage, but there are many others about this immensely interesting ramen restaurant. I must go there someday!

Man, where do I start? Look at the pictures of the extensive menu below! Some of the things on here include red ramen, green ramen, yellow ramen, blue ramen and purple ramen! Apparently red ramen is tomato ramen! Yellow ramen is turmeric ramen. The green ramen is... well, at first I thought it said blue ramen because the Japanese use the same character (青) for green and blue, but usually it means blue because they have a separate one (緑) that just means green. But when I read that the 青ramen was made of 青汁, I figured they probably meant green ramen. 青汁 (aoshiru) is... um... I don't know. It's some sort of super healthy green juice. Think of it like the Japanese version of wheat grass shots I guess. It's made out of kale and/or barley leaves and/or bittermelon(!?!?!) among other things I may not care to know about. It sounds awful, but I've never had it, so I can't really say. The blue and purple ramens are apparently made with vegetables that turn the soup that color. Hey, it sounds weird, but I'd at least be down to try it.

On to things I would probably try first, though! :D Ice cream ramen!!!!! Yes, I know, at first it doesn't really sound very good, but the more it sat there melting into my brain, the more and more awesome and awesome it started seeming. The soup is cold(!) The ramen is refrigerated and the ice cream is put on top so it can be eaten cold. From the picture on the left it's hard to tell, but that's just an ice cream cone full of soft serve that's cut in half. I'm not really sure what that green shredded vegetable sprinkled on top is. I think when I saw the picture on the right and started imagining myself sitting there staring into the bowl is when I really decided I want to try this. Ice cream and ramen could totally go together! Apparently the ice cream ramen came about because he used to give ice cream to kids who had been playing baseball across the street and came in starving afterwards. I guess the thought struck him... Why not put ice cream in the ramen? The man's a genius. :P

I'll run through the other ramens mentioned on that site quickly since I don't have pictures. It seems there is a coffee ramen that might be popular. It was inspired by a woman who really loved coffee and wanted a coffee drink after her ramen. So again, the idea struck the guy... Why not put coffee in the ramen? Truly inspired. :) I love this symbiotic relationship he has with his customers. The coffee ramen has milk added or it's too bitter. Once he had coffee ramen he had to create cocoa ramen (of course). There is a grated Japanese yam and kelp (konbu) ramen that sounds interesting. There's even a natto ramen!!! (I might try that one last.) Probably the most interesting ramen on the menu is alkali ramen. It's basically ramen with batteries droped into the soup (there's a picture on the page above with the shopkeeper holding batteries). He'll use large batteries for adults and small ones for children. I wonder what he was doing when he was struck with the idea... Why not put the batteries in the ramen? The man's a god. It souds tingly and delicious.

Although that's all that's mentioned on the aforementioned report, there is even more to be had here. Looking at this page, the shop apparently also offers... Fungus ramen?!?! Well, maybe not exactly. It seems to be ramen with probiotics added. Wait, dammit! That means I was beaten to yogurt ramen??? I guess. Not a big surprise really. Although, he doesn't use yogurt. He uses green tea, Kirin brand apparently, with probiotics added. I bet it tastes better than mine. He searched all over for the best tasting bacteria to make the perfect ramen. ;) Maybe he had the flu one day and the thought struck him... Oh, no, that's kind of gross. But anyway, I should train under this guy like in an old kung fu movie. He sounds amazingly cool!

Yogurt Ramen

There was a slight chance these two could go together. In fact, it wasn't bad, it just wasn't that great either. I used Yamachan tonkotsu-shoyu refrigerated instant ramen. All I added was green onion, a marinated egg, and a teaspoon of plain yogurt (I went light to be on the safe side). The soup lightened up a noticable amount, but I could not really taste any yogurt tanginess. Maybe once or twice I got a hint of it, but it was very subdued.

Actually, I think it took away a little from the salty shoyu flavor, which is an unfortunate side effect. Oh well. This might actually have potential, but once again, traditional ramen seems to win.

Bacon Ramen (Finally)

This is my destiny in life (OK, well I started this journey about a month ago, so luckily I have a back up destiny as well). Anyway, I finally got around to trying the bacon ramen. Mmm. I started off with, of course, bacon (see right). Nice fatty slices.

I used a shoyu base, and even a brand I haven't tried before (well, I've tried their miso, but I thought shoyu was less of a gamble).

I poured a little bacon grease into the bowl before adding the shoyu paste and hot water. Look at that awesome glisten. :)

So what are the results? Well, the bacon was good, of course. It's hard to go wrong with bacon, and ramen goes with pork like chocolate on cupcakes, so that wasn't much of a surprise. The noodles were good. You got a hint of bacon with each slurp, which is better than it sounds actually. So what about the soup? Well, it sort of made me a little queasy and smelled gross (like grease with a bland under-powering bean kind of taste mixed in). That's also what it tasted like. So, mediocre failure.
Hrm... What's that? Oh, I forgot the seasoning packet. Most refrigerated ramens don't come with seasoning, you just mix the paste / fat packet with water, so I naturally forgot it lying there on the counter. The instant I mixed the seasoning packet in, I got the intense sense of black pepper. Wow. There was also just plain salt (in fact, the first ingredient in the seasoning packet), and green onion. Once the seasoning was added, the ramen took on a incredibly different, amazing character. It was like I hadn't eaten in weeks and this was the first thing in my mouth. I devoured the soup. I am still a little light headed from the ramen high. It was a bit salty though.

Overall, it was pretty good, but very salty, and in fact I think I lucked out with the salty seasoning. The truth is, chashu is just the perfect pork form for ramen. It's basically bacon anyway, right? The fat will melt into the soup and the meat sponges up the flavor. I think ramen is the way it is for a reason. I'll stick to chashu, but it was a nice experiment. :)

Pitch black ramen

I have to correct a mistake in my last post. The strawberry ramen is served in the Aomori prefecture (around the northern tip of the main island of Japan), in the Hachinohe city (八戸市) marketplace. Strawberry ramen in Kobe is unconfirmed hearsay, although it may exist...

The huge pile of negi ramen was available in Kagawa prefecture (香川県) in the city of Marugame (丸亀市). It's called "Negi Ramen Koyama," Green Onion Ramen Hill. Unfortunately, according to the shop's website, the shop keeper is sick. The shop will be reopened if he recovers. Let's hope he does...

On to Irori Ramen--Fireplace Ramen??? Apparently, Sapporo (札幌) is the place to go for miso ramen (Well, they say miso ramen was invented in Hokkaido (北海道), of which Sapporo is the capital). It seems in the northern part of Sapporo, there is a shop that offers 「爐」のラーメン, Fireplace(?) ramen... As you can see, the soup is jet black. Here is the page I found this on. According to it, the soup is extremely oily (special lard packed with all sorts of vegetables and seafood), and it tastes like Shoyu base. Also, it is vehemently stated that it is not squid ink! :P

If you are brave, you can try to order it off that site. ;)