石釜 (Ishigama in Omotesando)

石釜



Miso ramen served in an iron pot? That's what you can get at Ishigama, located smack dab on Omotesando Street. Omotesando is an area of Tokyo known more for high fashion than cheap noodles. There are a ton of kick ass cafes in the area. Not so many ramen shops.

The menu is in multiple languages. Yes, this is a shop that caters to tourists. It's next to the massive Kiddie Land store, with 8 stories of Japanese character goods like Hello Kitty, Mameshiba, and of course Rilakuma. But that's for another blog. Let's eat some ramen!



I can't recommend this spot.

It's standard stuff, but the thing that I think is whack is exactly what draws people here, the iron pot. The soup is served in a red hot stone bowl, much like Korean bibinba. The hot pot should keep the soup hot and tasty till the last drop. But...

This totally threw off my ramen "pacing". As ramen slowly cools, my bites become quicker, my slurps lenghtier, the silence in conversations longer. But the hot bowl, coupled with a decrease in liquid has the opposite effect, and the soup gets hotter as it gets smaller. That, and the taste was just so-so.



Shop info here.

ばくだん (Bakudan in Shinjuku)

ばくだん



Hiroshima style tsukemen. Say what?



I wasn't really in the mood for tsukemen that day. Tsukemen is 99% of the time heavy and rich. Heavy and rich has its place, don't get me wrong. But I wanted refreshing with a kick. Healthy with an explosion. ばくだん means explosion, it must be meant to be.



Boom!



Bla-dow! The noodles and toppings were like a fresh salad. I could see a yoga instructor eating a plate of this with a light sesame dressing before a lesson. But I ain't no yoga instructor!



Pow! Here it is. The soup here is spiced up with plenty of chili and sesame. It's as good as it looks.



Smack! For an extra buck you get your egg and a side. I went for the rice ball, which was simple and a nice snack between spicy bites.

You can get anywhere from 0 to 20 spice level. Above 16 is "Uwaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!" I went with a 5 I think, which wasn't more than a slight tang.



The shop is eclectic and anyone who has lived in Hiroshima (me!) will get a kick out of all the random stuff in there. One note though, they don't have the owari soup that you can use to mix in the dipping sauce, which is too bad I think.

Nate went here too.

Shop info here.

白山ラーメン (Hakusan Ramen in Hakusan)

白山ラーメン



Ramen has many facets in Japan. Of course there is the food itself, but I think the atmosphere plays a huge roll. A beautifully reconstructed old Japanese warehouse converted into a ramen shop, a steamy shop filled with salarymen, an hour long line for a little hole in the wall... these things make it magic.



Enter Hakusan ramen. My photos, I realize, don't portray what I want to. Let me explain, and offer a promise to revisit in the near future.



The shop opens at 9pm. It closes at something like 4am. This is a spot for the night crowd. But Hakusan isn't near any sort of night life. You could walk here in about 20 minutes from Tokyo Dome after seeing a ball game... I guess. You could take the train way out of your way... I guess. Or you could drive up, order some ramen, and eat in your car. Or sit on the curb. Or stand. There are only 2 chairs available for the 30 or so people there.



This is the reality of the place, everyone orders their ramen, either with or without egg as there are only 2 menu items, waits 20 minutes, then just sits on the curb to eat. The curb of a semi-busy Tokyo road. The crowd is a mix of college students (big surprise), drunk salarymen, and a host or two. It's completely rad. And only a 2 minute bicycle ride from my apartment.



So I really really really wanted to love this ramen. Yeah, I'm saying the first bowl did disappoint. It was way greasy, even the bottom of the bowl had grease on it, and the chashu pork was like eating concentrated soy sauce.

Maybe I jinxed it, as I had planned on going here with fellow ramen blogger Nate, but jumped the gun when a friend was visiting from out of town. I also had high hopes, as this place is loved over at Yo! Japan.

So I'll play a little game of "fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me" and head back here soon.



Shop info here