We’re in Matsue now. There’s some game show on prime-time TV that involves brush calligraphy. Try to imagine a game show in the USA that is based on competitive handwriting.
On our last afternoon/evening in Tokyo, our friend Rafael ignored the jet-lag of a 30-hour journey ending the day before and joined us at our hotel. We ended up going out for dinner at the nearest Ippudo, a popular chain ramen restaurant. It has the trappings and arrangement of a traditional Japanese restaurant with the cooking area alongside the dining area. On Rafael’s recommendation I ordered ramen with miso as the main flavoring and a side of gyoza.
Good Japanese miso paste is difficult to describe. It has a complex, intense, savory flavor that is unlike anything else I’m familar with. The miso at Ippudo reminded me of celery and black pepper, maybe with hints of chili pepper also. The ramen came in a deep bowl with different sauces/soups poured in so that they were initially not mixed, creating different regions of flavor within one bowl. You can sort of see this in this photo:
The small pots with tongs in them contain ginger and various other pickled things, which you put on little dishes and eat occasionally to compliment the ramen. Here’s another shot with one of the cooks visible in the background.
The ramen was very good, and definitely different in overall flavor than the bowl I had at the museum. The surprise winner, however, was the gyoza, which you can see in the lower-left corner of this photo:
Yes, it looks pretty much like any other gyoza, but it had a fresh, intense flavor. I think that its flavor came in part from a good amount of ginger and the leek-like green onions that are popular here and the origin of the leek-spin legend and its related artifacts, including the T-shirt I happened to be wearing that evening.
All told it was an excellent dinner. The hostess noticed the T-shirt when we were leaving and was thoroughly amused. We walked through the rain to Ueno Station beneath the brightly lit signs on the buildings.
We bade Rafael adieu at the station. He took a train home and we caught a taxi back to the hotel. It was a delightful way to spend our last evening in Tokyo.
[Yeah, that’s not a great photo of either of them, but we were cold.]
