Dan Bites

We spent an afternoon at Himeji Castle before exploring some of the Nara Prefecture. If you only see one castle in Japan, you’d better make it Himeji. It is absolutely pristine. Easily the best preserved structure built in the 1300’s that I’ve ever been to. It is the quintessential Japanese Castle.

At any rate, it’s located about a 10 minute walk down the main street from the Shinkansen. We arrived about lunch time figuring that there’d be plenty fo food options along that 10 minute walk. Right we were. We decided to veer off onto a side street where a retail arcade was as there’s always cheap delicious food options a plenty in retail arcades. Instead of eating at one of those establishments we wandered into a typical hole-in-the-wall Japanese staple, their alter-ego of Chicago’s taquerias. We filled ourselves with Ramen Noodles.

This was a very typical ma and pa ramen shop that you find everywhere in Japan. You walk in and are greeted by ma and pa themselves, “Irrashaemase!” There’s a vending-like machine near the door with the menu on it. It basically consists of a few different Ramen broths with a handful of different additions to choose if you so desire. Put your money in, press the buttons for what you want, and out comes your little order ticket.

Then, you walk in to see that there’s only 8-10 chairs along the bar. Grab a seat. Every few seats are trays of condiments, things like soy sauce, togarashi, toothpicks, boxes of tissue for the runny nose the hot ramen will give you. There’s also little spickets of hot water with tea cups and green tea for you to make as you like along with a cold water dispenser. Hand the ticket across the bar and ma and pa make your food.

I ordered the Bakabuta Ramen and Yuki got the Miso Ramen with mushrooms. Both were miso broth with loads of bean sprouts, bamboo shoots, green onions, and black woodear mushrooms. Both came with a slice of roasted pork. “Buta” in Japanese means pig, so mine had extra pork. Two big pieces of fall off the bone sweet fatty pork. Each bite coated your lips with fatty goodness. Yuki’s had extra woodear mushrooms as well as what I think were eryngii mushrooms. If I’m wrong Yuki will correct me after she reads this and I’ll correct the blog.

Since we both love pork and mushrooms we arranged a deal. I gave her some pork, she gave me a few more mushrooms. A fair trade I think.

It’s too bad that 25 cent packages of dried ramen noodles killed the idea here in America. A nice big bowl of fresh ramen like this is fast, cheap, filling but not overly heavy, and healthy. In fact, just thinking about it makes me crave some ramen. I think I’ll make some for dinner tonight.