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Friday 26 September 2008

Sapporo Ramen

The ramen in Sapporo is one of the famous local food. Therefore, there is a small lane here called Ramen Yokocho with 16 ramen shops crammed in.

It can be quite difficult to find because it is off from the main street. I failed in my first attempt and settled for this Shin (New) Ramen Yokocho.

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The rule of thumb in finding good food is: look for the shop with the least number of empty seats or the length of the queue. However, I prefer the former.

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After I had found an empty seat, I started to look through the menu. One good thing about the food menu in Japan is that it usually comes with pictures. So, I ordered this:

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The toppings consisted of a large slice of chasu (roasted pork), mussels, a type of seashell and a whole squid. The noodles were very much like the curly egg noodles of the Chinese.

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After I finished this bowl of noodles, I kept exploring this area and I finally found the original Ramen Yokocho! It is actually directly behind Shin Ramen Yokocho but one has to make a big round turn to reach there. There is no bypass that one can cut through.

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So, I went back there on another day to look for a bowl of authentic Sapporo ramen.

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Out of the 16 shops, I picked this one because the most famous shop was jam-packed with a very long queue.

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Another reason that I entered this shop was due to the mouth-watering grilled chasu in the picture menu outside of the shop.

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This shop is run by a white-bearded guy who looks very much like an experienced chef and a food connoisseur. I knew I had entered the right shop!

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Although the time taken for him to serve one bowl of ramen was a little longer than in the other shops, but he prepared every bowl from scratch. I could see his sincerity in serving us the freshest ramen that we could offer. He even grilled the chasu there and then before serving it!

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The one that I ordered came with toppings of grilled chasu, two halves of half-boiled egg, one shrimp wantan (dumpling) and one scallop wantan. The soup base was black-bean miso.

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The noodles were the curly egg noodles, very much like the Chinese noodles. They were springy and crunchy. Eaten together with the fragrantly-grilled chasu, it was food made in heaven!

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4 comments:

WoMbOk™♂ said...

It's been such a long time since I had authentic ramen. There was this place I went to back on the Gold Coast and I remember my friend telling me that there was a poster that said that the pork based soup was cooked for 48 hours, until the bone melted into the soup. Lol. That's hardcore ramen.

Ruey said...

CK, I've been meaning to ask this in a long time now. But have you ever gotten an MSG headache from eating any one of the ramen? I find that everytime I eat some soup-based jap food back here, almost always kena MSG headache one. Curious whether it's a Msian thing or a Jap thing...since the Jap invented ajinomoto.;)

Melissa said...

Wow that food looks delicious. I wish I could get some now but I am in NYC. I just found a new travel site, baraaza.com. I think you will like it.

Hui Ling said...

The photos make me feel hungry....

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