This past weekend was really gross out, so I didn't feel like exploring as much as usual. But to make myself do something productive, I hunted down some ramen I'd been meaning to try. Below are the results!
Saturday:
Had some time to kill before my plans at night, so I looked up one of the more out-of-the-way ones that's highly chattered about in the ramen blog-o-sphere: Ivan Ramen. It seemed expensive and far to get there, but after deciding to walk to Shinjuku before taking the train, it was only 170Y or so and about 20 minutes. Finding it was surprisingly easy, too!
Here's the place! It says "Ivan Ramen" for those of you who can't read katakana. And the dish:
Looks delicious, right? Well that's 'cause it was! A bit fishier tasting then most ramen I'm used to, but great.
Sunday:
Ganko Ramen! A friend and I decided to eat at delicious ramen places, and this one is conveniently close to where I live. After 45 minutes of communication failure (or The Curse of Trying to Meet at a Tokyo Train Station, as I call it), we met up and headed to the restaurant. I realized halfway there that I didn't really know where it was. We asked the local con-bini man, and he surprisingly not only knew what it was, but exactly how to get there. Good going, con-bini man!
We got there and...closed on weekends. So we hit up a nearby Ippudo. If you live in NY, you should go to the one there, at least once if you haven't already.
Yum! Surprisingly similar to the one in New York. Pizza can never be done right anywhere outside of New York, but I guess ramen can be done just as well outside of Japan. Who knew?
You can barely see it in this photo, but there's a side of dumplings on the right. They are good alone, with mystery tangy sauce, gyoza tare, and when deliberately dropped in the ramen.
Monday:
Makeup test! That is, time to hit up Ganko, for real! I dragged some additional people with me this time, for to spread the enjoyment of ramen of course. We already knew where it was, so it made that part easier...
See what I mean about being hard to find? You can tell that it's open because there's a light over that bone! Duh!
Hey look, it's the dude who makes it! Glad he was cool enough to let me take a picture. Also glad enough my friend asked because I was too lame to.
The ramen! Stupid blogger rotated it for me! Thanks for doing that for no reason, blogger! (If someone knows how to change that please let me know).
But anyway, delicious. Possibly the best of the three; I don't usually get shio ramen but this was crazy flavorful. There were bowls full of mysterious spicy stuff and fried onions on the side, which may have been kind of a bad idea on the owner's part because we tore through those fried onions. The meat was really good, and when they were soaked long enough, even the menma tasted pretty good. Unfortunately, my blood pressure skyrocketed from that meal...
Well, there's my recent ramen runs. Don't think this will stop; I must eat more. Why I like ramen is for many reasons the same as why I like beer. There's a lot of good stuff, they're all different, local, and even the best stuff is cheap!
Until next time!
-Benjamin
