Chen Ping in Tachikawa

The Grandia building in JR Tachikawa station is home to a funky Chinatown. Yeah, Chinatown. Hmmmm, maybe more of a China food court. Take the escalators to the top floor of this department store and you are treated to about 10 Chinese restaurants. Half are dim sum places, others are random chinese food, but one, Chen Ping, is a ramen shop.



Tangy!

The taste is almost like Vietnamese Pho broth. Salty and spicy. The taste of cilantro went well with the shrimp and fried pork bits that were in the bowl.

Nice to have something different, but the fact that I was eating in a department store kind of took away from the magic.

From JR Tachikawa, take the Granduo exit. It's on the 7th floor in Chinatown.

Granduo China Town Site

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School Lunch 12/2... Ramen!

(I don't always have my camera, and have to resort to my cell phone)



Today's Junior High School lunch. Ramen noodles with some chashu pork and a mystery soup. On the side, those are 大学いも (university potatoes?). Also served with an apple and milk. Ramen doesn't really match with milk (stick with water), but the sweet fried potatoes do.

The soup was a sort of random thing. More like real soup than ramen broth. There were lots of carrots and bamboo shoots.

I had the 大盛 size with a couple extra plates of potatoes and an extra 2 milks.

I did a small survey of the kids I ate lunch with this day (about 30 thirteen year olds) and they actually prefer miso ramen the most. Adults are like 90% for tonkotsu, which makes sense.

Ever had ramen served at your school?

Ramen in Hong Kong

Spent a weekend in Hong Kong. There are many things in this city inspired by Japanese. Many restaurants especially. Teppanyaki seemed very popular, which is funny because places like Benihanas (where dinner is the show) aren't big in Japan. Noodles are of course common in China and Hong Kong, but I happened to find some ramen shops as well.



I wasn't hungry, so I didn't eat here, but it was an actual ramen shop with a line.



The menu had a selection of all styles of ramen.



Ajisen ramen was at the airport. It actually looked pretty good, but I wasn't hungry.



The ramen had little strange additions, like this one which says it has beans in it.



Wink!