Tokyo Ramen Show: Day 1

I say "Day 1" because there's a possibility that we'll go back for a "Day 2." We had that good of a time. My understanding is that the Tokyo Ramen Show is an annual event. I spend a lot of time reading about ramen on the internet (it's fascinating...), so one of the blogs probably posted about it, but I totally don't remember where it was from. No matter, the important thing is that all-star ramen chefs were meeting in one place to showcase their goods.

Actually, perhaps more importantly, maybe ten or so of the available 27 booths were joint ventures of various stores. Today was the third of six days this event goes on for, so I think that everyone in attendance already knew what the hot spots were. As a result, you had several lines that were over a half hour long and a ton of booths with no line at all.

The Tokyo Ramen Show is held in the Metropolitan Komazawa Olympic General Sports Ground. This is basically a fairly large sports complex next to Komazawa University which takes something like twenty minutes from Shinjuku including a transfer. The place was actually pretty tough to find since you have to navigate this park to get there.

We skipped lunch and got there a little after 3 PM, and the sun was already starting to go down. Each bowl of ramen is paid for by a ticket you purchase at the front for 750 Yen. We weren't sure how large the bowls were or how many places we wanted to hit up. Our initial plan of attack was to buy three tickets, pick three places, and eat each bowl as we waited in line. Needless to say, no food until the afternoon makes a hungry J.

So, without a good idea of which out of the 27 we should pick, we had the bright idea of getting in the longest line. Booth 23 was populated by the joint effort of 豚の骨 - Buta no Hone and 無鉄砲 - Muteppou. I was dying of hunger in that line, and it didn't help that the guys behind us were slurping down something with sighs of joy and the occasional "うまい！” We checked through our guidebook while we waited to pick out our other two choices.

So I have no idea what the original stores are like, but their combination turned out like this:

Sure it looks a little messy, but oh my god was it good. The gravy like soup was supposedly some sort of tonkotsu broth, but definitely had another coagulant in the form of miso, or sesame, or something. You eat that ramen and you don't care what's in it because it is seriously that good. One a scale of 0 - 100, this ramen rates at least ten points higher than any other ramen I've had in Tokyo so far. I really need to figure out how to track down any version of this. One of the stores is originally from Nara and the other is born out of Kyoto, but one of them (not sure which) has a branch location in Nakano. I might have to go and try it.

The noodles were thin and fairly firm, consistent with Hakata-style ramen, but the broth is really what sets it apart. V noticed a sign that said that it's full of collagen and therefore good for the skin. We would have drank it all down anyway, but after reading that if you don't finish it, it just feels like you're wasting medicine. Magical medicine. I'm still stuffed, but I want it right now. Aghhh, goddamnit.

Our second choice was Booth 15: Tetsu x Keisuke Revolution. Tetsu is one of the tsukemen front-runners in the city. Their known for the iron egg that you put into the soup to heat it back up. By all reports, it's delicious, but I've never had the opportunity to try it. Takeda Keisuke is a celebrity ramen chef who spent 10 years in France doing classical haute cuisine before moving back to Japan to join the ramen scene. He's known for his unique takes on ramen including an ebi broth in one location and a black sesame ramen in another. The Keisuke stores are one of the ones I most desire to try and this collaboration seemed like a can't miss.

Tetsu x Keisuke also utilized some sort of ebi broth as evidenced by the giant prawn shells on the counter. I'm not sure if it's because we ate this bowl right after a bowl of pure beautiful, but it turned out somewhat pedestrian. Don't get me wrong, the ramen was good and I definitely want to check out the real Keisuke, but this version of shoyu served up much like the shoyu we had at Menya Musashi. The noodles were a little thin, slightly curly and came out with a fishy flavor similar to bonito although the broth alone tasted much more shrimpy. It was really good, but definitely a bit of a letdown after all the hyping that went through in my head.

V especially didn't like this one very much at all, and I think that in general she's not a great fan of fishy ramen. I'm not even sure if she's a fan of ramen because occasionally I'll ask her what she wants for dinner and she'll tell me "ramen." However, after further probing, it turns out she doesn't really want ramen, she just wants Ichiran.

I'm sure she still wants Ichiran, but after that first bowl at booth 23, I'm not sure which one she'd crave more.

Nissin is the company responsible for inventing instant noodles, and I enjoyed my Tetsu x Keisuke in the zen backdrop of a giant smoking ramen bowl.

We had originally planned to make our last stop Booth 1: 一風堂 x 蒙古タンメン - Ippudo x Mouko Tanmen. The problem was that it had no line at all. If it's really good, it should have a line, right? Ippudo I had previously tried and liked but not loved. It's the one that I decided to go super spicy with. Mouko Tanmen's full name is Mouko Tanmen - Nakamoto. V recognized the name, and after a little googling we figured out that it was literally right down the street from us. It's a store that's in a basement and always has a respectable (maybe even daunting) line.

There really wasn't any other booth we wanted to try, and Booth 2, the collaboration of those two stores with a third, had actually been so popular that they had sold out their soup stock... So we took the dive and went for it.

I'm really glad we did. The broth wasn't quite as spicy as it looks but was some sort of spicy miso tonkotsu. It definitely had some elements different from the Ippudo I had, although a lot of it was similar. The noodles were the same; they were again the Hakata-style noodles but especially firm this time. The broth had some influence from that ground meat sauce on top, but I have no idea what that is. That could be from Mouko Tanmen, in which case I need to go eat that soon. End result, downright delicious.

So V probably has another place on her qualifies as ramen list: Ichiran, Booth 23, and Ippudo. I clearly need to go back to Ippudo and try something a little more normal. On top of that, I've identified a couple of other places within Tokyo that need to be eaten. It's a shame that nobody was in those lines, but anything originating in Tokyo was pretty much ignored. I'm pretty sure that everyone assumed the same thing that we did and figured they should try something different while the show is available. #1 on the new places list is 東池袋大勝軒一門 - Higashi Ikebukuro Taishouken Ichimon. We've previously read about Taishouken and the picture of it in our booklet looked awesome.

I'm getting more and more pro at eating ramen. Look at my rapid-fire hands, my level of focus. Both of us were kinda sorta thinking about another bowl, but we were a happy sort of full and another bowl would have taken us into the gross and unhappy territory. I was glad to see that our faith in Booth 1 was justified by a decent line on our way out.

We left in as good of a mood as the mood of two random schoolgirls we almost ran into as they came in. As soon as we hit the stairs on our way out, they popped up and with beaming smiles exclaimed "ここだ！” It was a pain for us to find the place too, but we also knew that they were in for a treat. Tokyo Ramen Show served us a bowl of pure awesome. I'm a little afraid of what the lines will look like this weekend, but I'm very very very tempted to return on Sunday for another bowl of Booth 23 and to try one at Booth 2.

On our way back to the station we stopped by Maruetsu which I had heard of before. It's basically a multi-storied everything store similar to a Target. Nothing there really blew us away, but it's one of those things that would be really nice to have nearby. We've been wanting to buy a blanket to keep us warm while the room is cold, and this was the perfect chance. Not only did Maruetsu have a decent selection, but they also had several on sale.

We ended up with this fuzzy guy for 1990 Yen, and V promptly succumbed to her food coma. I envy her. More food to come this weekend I think.