ホルモンラーメン (Horumon Ramen in Hokkaido)

ホルモンラーメン



And thus began an incredible trip across Hokkaido. Let me start off by saying that ramen wasn't a priority on this trip. Ramen in Hokkaido, or anywhere in Japan for that matter, tends to be better in the big cities. I have a motorcycle and a tent... big cities were not on the agenda. I didn't even stop in Sapporo for the entire month. Don't worry, I did spend a couple days in the ramen mecca of Asahikawa. Stay tuned.

What is horumon? As it is written in katakana, you immediately assume that it's some kind of... hormones? The first time you eat it (horumon is common anywhere Osaka style fried stuff is served) you will only really know that it resembles meat. Well, horu is Kansai dialect for trash, and mon is used to mean things. So horumon is the bits that usually get thrown out. Lips and assholes. Nothing to do with hormones.

It ain't bad, as long as you don't think about it.



No, I didn't order the horumon ramen, which they did have. Just a standard shoyu. It was standard. I was hungry at the time so it was fine.

But the highlight was when I left. I was getting on my bike, and a kid across the rice paddy was waving furiously at me. So I waved back. We were just waving for like a minute. Then I stopped and he must have realized that he had to pee. So he just whipped it out and took a wiz, still staring at me, waving something different this time.

Yeah, this is the countryside.

And so far I'm 0 for 1 with noodles here...

北海道の食べないラーメン (Hokkaido! Bowls I didn't eat)

The next few posts will be from Hokkaido, where I spent the entire month of August, touring around on my motorcycle, camping, and working on a dairy farm. Hit up my other site for that nonsense.

But first, a couple bowls I didn't eat.



Maguro (tuna) ramen. It's just got some vacuum packed tuna thrown in the pack of dried instant noodles.



Kuma ramen. Want some ramen with bear meat in it?



Morioka style ramen gift packs on an expressway rest area. I've got a big problem with expressway ramen, or the lack of it. All the good looking stuff was in convenient gift packs. No shops serving fresh bowls. And no room on my bike for a box of prepare-at-home stuff.

I never eat when I'm not hungry. As a ramen maniac, this can be hard, as I want to write about some weird place that I'll never have the chance to go to again. But hey, at least enjoy the photos, and if you are ever at the tip of the Shiretoko peninsula, you can tell me how the bear meat is.

じげん (Jigen in Takadanobaba)

じげん



I think I told Nate I wanted something heavy, but not too heavy. So we picked something that had the largest possibility of being too heavy, a fish based soup at Jigen. Let's roll the dice!



Natural 20! (Yes, Nate, I can make D&D references too.)



Freshly grilled chashu pork, huge hunks of menma, and a soup that was perfect. Even the powdered fish mound included in this type of ramen was juuuuust right.

Actually, I shouldn't say freshly grilled chashu, because the chef whipped out a blow torch to get the char on this pork. Fire made it good!

The 1 block radius of this shop is completely ramen right. You could spend a couple weeks eating at a different shop every day and never be disappointed.



Shop info here.