Flavor Boulevard

Ramen is all hip now and if I were that into ramen, I probably would try a ramen shop everyday until I exhaust all options in Tokyo (it will take only a few lifetimes). But honestly, there’s SO MUCH MORE about noodles in Japan that I’m glad I didn’t spend all my time with ramen. I don’t regret one bit that I had only ONE bowl of ramen in Tokyo the entire stay. When I think about the spaghetti with boiled anchovy (you can also have it raw) or somen and rice with clam(*), I’m filled with joy. (I really am!)

Ziggy’s Pasta is an unassuming shop a stone’s throw away from Koutoku-in in Kamakura – the temple with the great copper statue of Buddha, where 60% of the tourists stick their hands out for a statue-carrying pose.

When we visited in Kamakura, my life goal was too eat shoujin ryouri (精進料理) – traditional Buddhist vegetarian meal, but that goal was quickly quenched because everybody and their grandma were lining up outside every restaurant during lunch time, and no shoujin ryouri restaurant was opened for dinner. So we walked along the street in dejection, and suddenly I saw Ziggy’s Pasta. If I can’t have what I want, I might as well eat the first thing I see – pasta.

This is their menu. The guy recommended the left page as their specialty: cold spaghetti in 3 different types of sauce topped with shirasu (which I didn’t understand but was in for the thrill anyway), which can be served either raw or boiled. I’m not into tomato sauce and I didn’t know what “sudachi” was (the first category), so that’s that. With “bajiru”, I just felt a chance of knowing what it meant, so I asked him what “bajiru” was. He thought and thought, and tilted his head, “bajiru desu ne…? sorewa, italy no …” (loosely mean “bajiru huh? It’s an Italian …”) and tilted his head some more. I tilted my head too, to search for an Italian thing that is green and starts with “b”. It took me a good minute. Can you guess?

Here is spaghetti with boiled shirasu (anchovy) in bajiru sauce. Admittedly it neither sounds nor looks too heart-warming – I had never had cold pasta with fish before, much less boiled fish, but this dish confirms that the Japanese knows how to work their fish into everything. The fish is not at all fishy, just a tiny bit salty, the pasta and the sauce work together splendidly, and the coolness from the plate to the silverware to the pasta lifts you up from the afternoon summer heat like no other. I was revived.

The sudachi option with raw anchovy has more zest, but I think I’m not quite there with the raw fish, they go down a little too… smooth? This dish was definitely going for the slimy smooth theme, considering the raw egg and ikura (salmon roe). The myoga (Japanese ginger flower buds) adds a much appreciated crunch, though.

Thinking back, the evening at Ziggy’s Pasta was one of the more memorable meals I had in Japan. It’s worth missing out on the traditional Buddhist meal. Sure, spaghetti is much less Japanese than shoujin ryouri, but where can you find spaghetti like this but in Japan?

Address: Kamakura Ziggy’s Pasta
神奈川県鎌倉市長谷1-16-25
Kamakura, Japan

(To be continued)

Foodnote:
(*) Somen and rice with clam will have to wait until Noodles Part 3. Originally I intended to do them with cold spaghetti, but as I wrote on, I realized that cold spaghetti deserves it own post, and so does somen. 🙂

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Guest blogged by C. from Katsushika, Tokyo.

Unagi rice with cold soba (680 yen) at some noodle shop on Waseda Dori, Chiyoda.

When I was slurping ramen with Mai at The Ramen Shop, I vowed to drown myself in ramen when I get to Japan. When I’m in Japan, I get so overwhelmed that I resign to konbini foods. It is too easy to find a soba, udon or ramen joint in Tokyo, the former two often together. Every 20 meter is likely to pack a few shops, and any shop we see likely serves superior fares to the places we’ve tried in the States. June air in Tokyo is as heavy as the steam from the bowl, but it never stops our appetite.

One minor setback: the order machine. It’s simple enough: you decide what you want, insert the money, push a few buttons (or one, if you don’t want to add anything to your order). The problem is reading the all-Japanese labels. I always feel like an idiot when I stare it down for minutes when everyone just punches away. Granted I’ve never taken less than 2 minutes with a candy vending machine in the States either.

Inside a soba and udon shop on Waseda street:

We didn’t pick this place for any reason other than it being on our way to Yasukuni shrine, but I had the best soba here.

A simple hot soba with wakame (sheets of seaweed – the dark green stuff) and tempura mushroom. You can have the tempura on the side or in the soup, I opted for in the soup because I just love the crunchy texture on the verge of turning soggy. The wakame soba by itself would have been 400 yen, tempura boosted it to 470 yen.

The much shorter wait helps: you place the order and get your noodle in hardly 2 minutes. Not because this place was relatively empty. Jangara in Akihabara had a line of tens of salarymen out the door, and my noodles came out before I could even take a picture of the menu.

The Jangara I visisted is a tiny ramen shop in a sidestreet in Akihabara and known for its Kyushu-style ramen (fatty rich broth from pork bones). An acquaintance recommended this place as his childhood favorite and a contributor to propel the status of Kyushu ramen and shape the modern ramen scene in Tokyo. There’s a Jangara in Harajuku with English menu. This one doesn’t (or they didn’t give me one). I was ushered into the very last counter seat (thank god! I was worried that I’d be put between two serious-looking Japanese men and be judged for taking pictures and eating slowly) and given an all-Japanese menu. (Much preferable to the buttons and machines though!)

I sticked to the top few choices that had “Jangara” in the name, and managed to make out “meat” in the sea of kanjis. That was the most important thing, so I thought.

However, I should have studied harder and remembered the character for “egg”, because my ramen did not have a soft-boiled egg. The customer next to me (a few of them actually, they came and went so fast while I was there that I lost count) all had eggs. 🙁 Regardless, this is the best ramen I’ve ever had. Yes, the broth is superior (rich and hot like melted garlic butter), but the noodle won me over. It was round and thin, very slightly curled, and just the right amount of chewiness. The pork belly was a nice accessory but far from necessary.

I still wonder how the salarymen could eat so fast (and drank the whole bowl of broth too!). It made me feel bad that I took about 10 minutes total and couldn’t finish my broth (I didn’t want to burst). I tried very hard to sink into my corner and weaseled my way out as quietly as possible. Hopefully nobody noticed the only girl in the flow of customers.

Address: Kyushu Jangara (九州じゃんがら)
Sotokanda 3-11-6, Chiyoda-ku, TOKYO
(West of Akihabara station)
Jangara ramen with pork: 800 yen

(To be continued)
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Guest blogged by C. from Katsushika, Tokyo
C. is Asian, female, something of a frivolous nature that wishes to go only by C. and so kindly agrees to blog while Mai is head-deep in work and Kristen is away in Seoul.

— Guest blogged by C. from Katsushika, Tokyo. —

Knowing enough Japanese to converse is an advantage but it can also hurt your wallet. I keep getting drawn into clothing stores everywhere I go, and the staffs keep sweet talking me into trying on stuff. (It doesn’t happen if you’re with a friend though!) As if that wasn’t bad enough, why does everything always fit so perfectly? Damn Asian one-size-fits-all. I feel too guilty to just walk out without an adequate reason, so there goes my college savings. The answer is, of course, konbini foods.

There are 3 convenient stores on the way from Kameari station to our apartment, including a Family Mart 2 minute walk away and a Lawson 1 minute from the Family Mart. Konbini food is so good and so cheap that I keep spending more on clothes!

Pictured, from top:
1. Some pastry – I don’t know what I just ate but it’s good.
2. Yakisoba pan – stirfried noodles on bread with some pickle ginger (the pink stuff)
3. Some chocolate pastry – Look at that bar of chocolate in the middle! It’s so thick it’s literally a BAR. Peet’s “chocolate croissants” (and any kind of chocolate pastry anywhere in America), SHAME ON YOU!

On some days if time permits for breakfast, Michiko san fixed me toast and egg. The bread is just normal white bread from the convenient store, but Japanese white bread is A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE from American white bread. Half-inch thick. Big (ACTUALLY a square, not a puny slice of sadness with 4 squished corners like an abused textbook in a rain-soaked backpack). Fluffy (and stays that way!). ABSOLUTELY AMAZING however you look at it and however you eat it. You know those quiz questions “What will you take  if you’re going to a deserted island or something equally ridiculous?” From now on I will say “A truck load of Japanese white bread”. American bread, good bye.

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C. is Asian, female, something of a frivolous nature that wishes to go only by C. and so kindly agrees to blog while Mai is head-deep in work (and classic novels) and Kristen is away in Seoul.

Go to Tokyo. Visit the Odaiba Takoyaki Museum. Practise using chopsticks correctly and buy a (few) pairs at Kappabashi. Eat shave ice and watch fireworks (and people) on the Sumida river bank in July. Eat pan-fried soup dumplings in a neighborhood dumpling restaurant in Nakano. Eat “hone” (pronounced |hoh-nay|, meaning: deep-fried sea eel backbone). Stop eating eel because they’re in the red on the Seafood Watch list.

Thanks to Matthew Amster-Burton’s book, I’ve had the first 7 items on my bucket list figured out (it’s a bucket list, not a to-do list because of the stop-eating-eel thing). I can’t wait to do them (except the stop-eating-eel thing). If a few months ago I was complacent with imaginatively traveling through books, Pretty Good Number One throws one delicious, chuckle-inducing paragraph after another to my face and say “go to Tokyo, you lazy donkey”. Just about the most expensive place to visit in the world, thanks, Mr. Amster-Burton. 😉

Except for the part where he describes Chinese green tea as having “a hint of smoky barbecue” and how red bean paste is an acquired taste for Westerners (because beans are supposed to show up in savory foods, not sweets – hello, pumpkin pie?), Pretty Good Number One is enjoyable every minute of reading.

The book is short (only 227 pages) in relatively big clear font. It took me a few 10-minute bus rides and one Christmas Eve to finish. It is a good guide for Westerners (and anyone who hasn’t been to Tokyo) and a respectful and honest glimpse into a city in the East. Andrea Nguyen of Viet World Kitchen posted a long wonderful talk with Amster-Burton about the book last year.

Pictures are available on prettygoodnumberone.com, but I’m not looking at them too closely in fear of sleepwalkingly booking a Tokyo-bound flight tomorrow. Amster-Burton’s writing is so witty and the stories about his little “hungry monkey” Iris are cheezburger-cat level of adorable!

Amster-Burton also includes a long list of his recommended readings at the end (some of which he mentions intermittently throughout the book), and I’ve made my first Amazon’s wish list (so many first lists because of Pretty Good Number One!). It is against my traditional Vietnamese culture to outright ask for gifts (man I feel so shameless!), but JUST IN CASE you ever think about supporting Flavor Boulevard… 😉

In less than a month since its opening, everybody I know on 4th Street has been to Iyasare, from the regular shoppers to the shop owners, and everybody praises it. The restaurant, operated by former Yoshi’s executive chef Shotaro Kamio, replaces the equally cute and also Japanese O Chame. The two restaurants have different concepts, of course, and experiencing both in the same space – reminiscing on O Chame’s menu and atmosphere while savoring Iyasare’s – was like tasting the fleeting grandeur of ukiyo-e aesthetics in the most delicious way possible.

A beautiful arrangement: ikura (salmon roe), ankimo (monkfish liver), hotate (scallop, the white thing that is barely visible next to razor-thin slices of radish), mackerel (silvery grey, also almost invisible under the radish), and 4 beautiful sweet lobes of uni (sea urchin roe, on the maple leaf) ($22). The ankimo has a thick and dried rind, its flavors were a tad salty and smokey for my taste.(*) The uni was extra-creamy but a little too soft. The ikura was some lovely bubbles.

You can order a side of sushi rice with the sashimi. Or just sushi rice. Actually, I ate every single last grain of rice in that bowl, and I’d be happy to skip the sashimi.

Apple seaweed salad with fennel, pickled daikon and carrots, shaved bonito, citrus brown rice vinaigrette with fresh bits of blood orange, and two silken tofu cubes ($9). Nothing to complain here.

Wagyu beef tataki ($13), slightly seared; the best way to eat them, we found, is:
1. Place a tuft of green stringy stuff (julienned wasabi leaves, wasabi sprout, chicory, whatever leafy things) and a sliver of crispy garlic on a slice of beef,
2. Daintily use your chopsticks to roll the beef to enclose the greens and the tangerine bits,
3. Still using the chopsticks, turn the beef roll 2 times around to soak in the ponzu (the brown sauce).
4. Stuff it in your mouth (if you manage to keep it together this far). Delicious.

Our waitress weaving back and forth through the dinner rush hour.

It was a Wednesday night, Iyasare was pretty peaceful and devoid of people, but only until about 7. Then, everybody in town poured in, the waitresses started to lose track of things, brought us things we didn’t order and simply couldn’t see us anymore.

Miso-glazed Maple Leaf duck confit ($20). Embarassingly, we thought the “Maple Leaf” was part of the dish (but no, it’s the name of the duck farm). In our defense, the maple leaf in the sashimi plate led us astray. 😛

I wasn’t too thrilled by the Tokyo turnip, the green beans and the gobo (burdock) in this dish. A length-wise-cut gobo would have been crunchier, and the turnip was cooked a hair too long. On the bright side, very rarely does a duck dish go wrong, and when it’s glazed with miso like this? Heavenly.

The BEST of the night: gyutan (grilled beef tongue) ($17). Well, I always love beef tongue, so I’m biased. Maybe the duck was better. But this beef tongue dish was perfect as a whole, from the quick-pickled cucumber to the trio of miso (the black akamiso had the deepest, richest flavor among the three). When you cut into a slice of gyutan, you could feel through your knife how tender it was. I even ate a fourth of the grilled lemon (under the right piles of gyutan).

We skipped desserts.

Address: Iyasare
1830 Fourth Street
Berkeley, CA 94710
(510) 845-8100

FOODNOTE:
(*) For comparison, B-dama’s ankimo is still the champion on the East Bay, and Musashi’s ankimo is surprisingly satisfactory for its price mark.

A more comprehensive “map” of what we shared is on Ponga.

Through words of mouth (from a kid that comes to my office hour, to be precise), I learned that the ramen burger is here in Berkeley. Hah, you don’t have to be in LA or NY or SF to eat this (relatively) new craze(*). Mashable has a guide to make it yourself, but why go through the trouble when you can buy it?

Unlike all other hypes that turn out to be various degrees of meh (in no order, truffles, caviar, foie gras, Cheeseboard, M.Y. China, Fentons, et cetera), the ramen burger is delicious. I gorged it down, completely defeated. Farewell, my hype-bashing days.

So Oishi in Berkeley dishes out 3 types of ramen burgers ($9 each): pulled pork (with wasabi mayo), grilled chicken (with ginger miso sauce), and the usual beef patty (with teriyaki sauce). (You can ask them to swap the sauce.) We had enough sense to avoid the chicken burger (who wouldn’t?!), and were split between pork and beef. Both types contain sauteed mushroom and come with “Japanese fries” (katsuobushi and Japanese mayo). Both sides finished with complete satisfaction.

They give you fork and knife, too, because unless you’re very skilled (or just take mousy bites), the burger will fall apart sooner or later and you get a sort of yakisoba with meat. Still delicious, just harder to eat by hand.

A personal plus: So Oishi sprouted from the same spot that used to house my old favorite (albeit barely average) Berkel Berkel.
A not-so-personal minus: they claim to be “the very first authentic Japanese ramen soup, ramen bun burger and sushi burrito restaurant… in Berkeley, CA”. Well if you want to be authentic, make sure you can spell. “Oishii” (おいしい、which means “delicious”) has two i’s, not one.

Good fries, though!

Address: So Oishi
2428 Telegraph Ave (next to Thai Noodle 2 and across the street from Rasputin Music)
Berkeley, CA
(510) 644-8278

Foodnote: (*) Keizo Shimamoto first invented it in NY late July – it’s been that long already?!

The luxury of cold noodles on colder days. Everything was perfect, from the taste of wasabi in the noodle dipping sauce to the tail end of those shrimps. So perfect that I couldn’t properly focus my camera phone.

Too bad Chef Koichi Ishii only makes the soba on Friday and Saturday from 11 am to 1 pm.

Pictured: Ten zaru soba (soba with tempura shrimps and vegetables) – $18. More details on what’s in the picture are here.

For dessert, we had soba tofu (tofu made from buckwheat instead of soy) with white sesame and kinako (roasted soybean flour), drenched in melted brown sugar. (^_^)

This ramen shop in the Financial district looks cute. Black walls with Japanese writings, a clock with numbers spelled out in hiragana, and a t-shirt that (I assume) sells for 3000 yen (~30 USD). The owners seem to try keeping it as hole-in-the-wall as possible (to make it appear authentic?). Of course, despite what the name might suggest, it’s not actually underground, nor do you need any special thing to get in.

All basic ramens are $8 with $1 toppings. The basic ramen contains your choice of broth, pork (chashu), scallion and mushroom.

My miso ramen with extra kakuni (braised pork belly). The mushroom is raw (not only is that just wrong – think about cold mushroom in a luke warm broth! bleh!, enoki would have made a MUCH better ramen companion than portobello T_T). There’s ONE puny slice of chashu. The broth is fine but it’s missing something… (more pork, probably!!!) At least the noodle is chewy.

If you’re curious, this is what disappointment tastes like.

(Actually we later realized that we should have asked for an egg, that’s what missing. But still, we could really use another slice of pork…)

Address: Ramen Underground
355 Kearny Street
San Francisco, CA 94108

It’s packed when we went for dinner and online reviews suggest that there’s always a line at lunch, but San Francisco, when will you stop hyping up every. single. thing!

Hokkaido butter corn miso ramen with smoked king salmon, pork belly, soy-marinated egg, snap peas, chrysanthemum greens, and shiitake. ($16)

Okay so, The Ramen Shop is not a place I would go alone. I think eating there alone would be particularly wonderful because ramen is the type of food to be eaten alone, and although the lighting might be too low for reading, it’s hard to read while slurping noodles anyway. BUT, the wait is just too horrible. This place has been hyped up since its opening in January, and it stays hyped. No sensical lone diner should wait an hour for a bowl of ramen.

It’s good ramen, though. I didn’t expect too much, and I was satisfied.

The broth was rich, although not hot enough (maybe I remember more than I should from the movie Tampopo, but they say the ramen broth should be boiling hot when arriving at the table). By American standard though, this is fine. I like that they keep the menu simple: 3 kinds of ramen – shio ramen with manila clams, veggie shoyu ramen with mushroom and salt-cured egg (yeah, ramen ain’t no place for vegan 🙁 ), and miso ramen with salmon. The only complaint: why no simple ramen with just pork belly? I understand that you want to make the $15 price tag seems more reasonable by adding some extra stuff, but the salmon really doesn’t belong.

Black sesame ice cream sandwich ($6) – The ice cream part is okay, but I’m not a fan of the sugar cookie.

The Ramen Shop is at 5812 College Avenue, Oakland, CA 94618 – (510)788-6370.

Mai has written quite favorably about Musashi in a past post but I have to write about a particular dish that has been about the best thing I’ve eaten in a restaurant lately.

That dish would be the chirashi sushi ($20) listed under the donburi menu items. This is by far the freshest, tastiest, and best-valued chirashi bowl that I have ever eaten. A win-win-win!

The bowl generously comes with at least 2 slices (some fish came with 3 or 4 slices) of tuna (two different types that were raw and one type that was slightly seared), salmon, mackerel, hamachi, raw scallops, octopus, shrimp (not pictured since the chef forgot to put it in the bowl but gave us the order on the side), a glorious piece of uni, squid-wrapped cucumber, tamago, and a dollop of salmon roe. All of this came on top of a huge mound of sushi rice, which was perfectly cooked. I would definitely recommend sharing, as this is way too big of a dish for one person to eat alone. Each piece of fish was so fresh that it was hard for me to pick one that I liked over the others. However, the true standout of the bowl for me would definitely be the uni. So rich, so creamy, and it just melts in your mouth with just the slightest hint of the ocean. This is the perfect example of how fresh uni should taste like and besides, how often is it that a chirashi bowl actually gives you a big fresh piece of uni?

For only $20, this is a dish that is well-worth the piece. I recommend getting one to share with someone else in order to make room for all of the other yummy dishes that Mai already covered in-depth. This is by far the best chirashi bowl I have ever had and the next time that I crave sashimi, I’ll head over to Musashi!