my favorite type of men

raMEN

duh

Checklist:
*layered and MSG packed broth
*bouncy noodles
*presence of pork
*perfect soft boiled egg
*prettiness
But I try not to be too picky.

Surprisingly, I don't get cravings for ramen quite as often as one (who knows me) would think, but there was a one to two week span when I got ramen three times. I mean, but that's kind of the best way to compare ramen places right?

First things first. I could eat these fried garlic chip things in oil like popcorn while I'm in line for an action super hero movie. With a spoon of course - I'm not a savage. And that's more or less what I did. Managed to stop myself when the little sauce cup was half empty.
But more because my focus shifted to the namesake ramen made with chicken and seafood. I liked the broth, I liked the noodles, I liked that everything worked and nothing outcompeted in this perfect lunch portion.

Hinodeya

Opened up the appetite (except that waiting in line actually opened up the appetite) with fried enoki mushrooms because they're kind of my favorite mushrooms... and fried? Yes, please. Verdict is that they weren't mushroomy enough on the inside. It was kind of like eating fried batter.
I'm one of those people who doesn't like ordering the same meal as someone else at the table, but the organic shoyu with clear chicken and pork soup, shoyu dare, pork chashu, duck chasu, kale and kale sprouts, chives, menma, and nori just sounded too good to overlook. So Ricia and I got the same thing... probably for the first time ever in our dining date history. Such a pretty bowl of noods 'n things though.

Mensho



Would happily drown my single sorrows in takoyaki like Boyle just before he meets his super weird soulmate. Or fish donuts as Jake Peralta would say. Is takoyaki not a normal thing in normal life? I mean, B99 takes place in NYC.

I did learn about a new style of ramen at Iza though. Tsukemen. Or dipping ramen. Because you, yes, dip the noodles into the incredibly thick and intense broth full of meat and menma. And the interactive nature doesn't stop there - halfway or a third or a fourth of the way through, you add in a little cup of vinegar to change up the flavor. And then when you've eaten up all the bits in the broth, you ask for a cup of dashi to dilute it into a proper hot bowl of soup to drink down. It kind of became a thought experiment for me, as I decided when to change it up. Reinforced my propensity for sour things... for the brightness.

Iza

Fave: Hinodeya.
And now I'm wading through another ramen dry spell to be broken the next time cravings hit.