Ramen Adventures: 一 (Ninomae in Kabukicho)

Monday, October 24, 2011

一 (Ninomae in Kabukicho)

一製麺食堂

Here I am with my partner in プレイボーイ crime. Check us out weekly in the magazine.

This shop's name is 二の前. Get it?

Kabukicho is, as I mentioned before, the entertainment capital of Japan. It's actually not as shady as it used to be, as the sin is slowly rotating clockwise along the Yamanote line. My old district of residence, Sugamo and Otsuka, now that place is scummy.

But Kabukicho still retains all the elements of night-on-the-town fun. Ramen is a given, but after a crazy night, you should really be eating crazy ramen, no?

Yes! 挑戦者向き, chousenmuki. Challenger-style.

But before we could get to the crazy ramen, we had to get to the crazy order.

That's a lot to sort out. 5 bowls, a ton of toppings, snacks, and more drinks.

They made it easy by piling all the extra toppings into one bowl.

This is the 女性向き, ladies-style. I nice clear shoyu broth.

This...

... is challenger-style. Not only was a large amount of pork fat added to the broth, it was actually fried in a wok to reduce the liquid. The result is what you see. If it wasn't a cultural no-no, I could stick a pair of chopsticks in vertically. Sludge might be a good way to describe this.

After what seemed like an hour, all challengers had been utterly defeated. Each bite took longer and longer, and by the end we had barely dropped below the rim. It wasn't bad, in the way that pure butter isn't bad.