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So Ace n I are on a mission to burn our tummys from the inside out hunting for yummy spicy ramen in Japan. Ramen is a serious business here everyone and anyone is or wants to be an expert. We just love the taste of the soupy noodles and love finding all the different types - pork or miso base, clear, yellow or hand made noodles. The options are endless and i want to share our spicy ramen adventures. Thus far we have been pretty successful finding some spicyness... here is one that we found in Meguro. The whole shop is painted bright red which seems to be a must for spicy ramen, and as you can see the soup is just as bright. Ordering from the non-english vending machine was the first challenge with a wonderful smiling man, also wearing a red t-shirt and headscarf, giving us some help via charades. As for the soupy noodles - yumo! The noodles were the wiggly ones which are not as good in my books but still noice. The soup was pretty thin and not much sludge (some ramen has lots of miso base and makes it quite thicker and sometimes gritty), really nice rich flavour not too salty. Most spicy ramen shops have a scale to gauge just how hot you want to have your ramen. This shop's scale was from 1 - 10. I had about a 6/10 spicyness which made me sweat and burn quite a bit. Ace had 10/10 and ended up with tingling lips and lots of "burniness". Sometimes the meat is really fatty and this one was pretty lean so bonus points there. Overall this one is good, toiletpaper in the freezer please.
Last weekend saw fun times to celebrate Ace's (half) bday. Now as some of you are aware, Ace's bday is normally between chrissy and nye, in order to make it more special and separate we have officially moved it.
So we jumped on our pushies and headed out n about in Tokyo for the weekend. First stop was the 60th Floor of the Sunshine City building in Ikebukuro, a 360 deg view of Tokyo pretty damn amazing even with the smog. You can also, in this 60th floor enclosed floor, buy cigarettes from the vm and puff away enjoying the view. This building proudly is home to an aquarium, apparently the highest in the world, ie its on the 13th floor! Most of the buildling is shopping of course, and then there is a fun park devoted to food! Namco Nanjatown!! Gyoza, Cream Puffs and Ice Cream - what more could anyone want. So you can walk through haunted houses with a funny little intereactive head on legs and nearly lose your gyoza from fear, or just play on the many video games drumming away or fighting the whitewater rapids and earn your icecreams!!
The gyoza section takes up half of the floor and you can try over 100 types of gyoza from all over japan from some of the best chefs that make it! We tried a soupy one which was garlicy and nice and also one with corn n cheese, and beef of course.
Going to the loo for the girls using the western toilet is pretty scary as there is a big monster sitting behind the loo on the wall and the back of the door has huge mirror so if seeing yourself on the loo isn't bad enough the scary head behind will ensure there is no lingering.
I think the weirdest part of this day was Ace's go at eating black ice cream - made from sesame seeds and not really much taste - but boy does it stain everything it touches including your tongue, pretty gross, makes you look like you have been feasting on zombies. Highly recommend this Namjatown for young and old - a food themed fun park what more could you want?
In the evening a wander around the bright lights of Ikebukuro and Transformers the movie (could have been missed).
Next day we headed out for a wee ride at lunch time, and well, the clouds didn't look like rain! On our way back it started to pour, but at least it is warm at this time of year. A classic japanese site was some men putting up some electric lights outside a shrine for a coming festival. Now electrics in the rain are bad enough, but also climbing up about two story on scafolding with no safety harness to put the lights up and smiling and waving to the tourists taking their pictures, just damn dangerous! Whilst drying off at home Ace got to play with his new toys of Princess Leia figures and gundam models - you don't have to grow up here.
Monday being the offical bday set out for a beer in a boot at the local irish pub and then off some yummy french dinner whilst looking out over tokyo and the tower!
I had fun I hope Ace did too! Happy (half) bday! Jojo
So Ace n I are on a mission to burn our tummys from the inside out hunting for yummy spicy ramen in Japan. Ramen is a serious business here everyone and anyone is or wants to be an expert. We just love the taste of the soupy noodles and love finding all the different types - pork or miso base, clear, yellow or hand made noodles. The options are endless and i want to share our spicy ramen adventures. Thus far we have been pretty successful finding some spicyness... here is one that we found in Meguro. The whole shop is painted bright red which seems to be a must for spicy ramen, and as you can see the soup is just as bright. Ordering from the non-english vending machine was the first challenge with a wonderful smiling man, also wearing a red t-shirt and headscarf, giving us some help via charades. As for the soupy noodles - yumo! The noodles were the wiggly ones which are not as good in my books but still noice. The soup was pretty thin and not much sludge (some ramen has lots of miso base and makes it quite thicker and sometimes gritty), really nice rich flavour not too salty. Most spicy ramen shops have a scale to gauge just how hot you want to have your ramen. This shop's scale was from 1 - 10. I had about a 6/10 spicyness which made me sweat and burn quite a bit. Ace had 10/10 and ended up with tingling lips and lots of "burniness". Sometimes the meat is really fatty and this one was pretty lean so bonus points there. Overall this one is good, toiletpaper in the freezer please.
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