8am
Woke up
Agenda for the day:
- • Visit Shinjuku Gyoen Park to
see the Cherry Blossoms - • Trip to the Ramen Museum
out at Shin-Yokohama - • Dinner somewhere in Ebisu
Vidur & Varun
Write About Stuff
Japan 2018
Day 3
Commute to Shinjuku
This is a garden next to my Aunt's house
We stop through this bakery every morning on our way to the train station. This is a ham and cheese pastry. The bread is absolutely delicious!
Cigarettes sold in vending machines
Walking around Shinjuku while the folks get coffee
Harambe's Café?
Stumbled across this beautiful Buddha
Sakura at Shinjuku Gyoen Park
Shinjuku Goyen is one of the best spots for viewing beautiful, intermingling Sakura, and that’s where we spent our Sunday morning.
It wasn’t exactly a peaceful stroll through a park though, as hordes of people scrambled for a glimpse of the ephemeral flowers. Families and friends gathered for picnics under its shade, seemingly settling down for the next three to four hours at least. As a result, tourists (like us), attempted and failed to take photos of ourselves with the trees while excluding other humans.
"Hordes" of people lining up to enter the park
Families and friends picnicking under the trees
Trying to get a picture without other people in the shot is near impossible...
It was definitely worth the hype, however in the future I may look out for locations that are not as densely populated.
Quick Photo Competition – which of these shots
do you think is better? Here are mine (Vidur's):
And here are Varun's:
Let us know in the comments!
Commute to Shin-Yokohoma
I occasionally play this great board game called Tokaido
with my board game group. 10/10 would recommend.
Shin-Yokohama Rāmen Museum
Nobody told me that I would be visiting heaven on this trip.
The museum was built for people to experience Japan in the early 20th century. A set of stairs descended into an artificially created town, complete with disheveled homes, clothes line hanging from house to house, narrow streets, a night sky, shops, bars, and of course, plenty of ramen restaurants.
We had our pick from over 9 ramen restaurants, each one specializing in a particular type of broth. Half portions of ramen were available so that customers could try food from more than one restaurant without broth pouring out of all their orifices.
The experience was ideal to try different broths and noodle varieties in quick succession. In my everyday life, back in San Francisco, there’s usually a gap of about a month between different bowls of ramen. This makes it hard to remember the exact differences between the broths at various restaurants. At the museum, it was easy to tell here which broth was richer, which had a meatier flavor, which was saltier, etc.
We don't have many photos of the bowls themselves
unfortunately...a little too focused on the eating :|
We discovered the half portion button a little late into the expedition. We could've easily downed a couple more kinds of ramen otherwise...
The museum section had a good bit of information about the history of ramen. The origin of ramen is Chinese noodle soups (of course). The way broths were made for soups was to simmer meat on a low flame for a period of time. Over time, people started adding pork and green onions which were atypical for Chinese noodle soups. However, the tonkotsu variety of ramen, which is now so famous, was an accidental discovery when a chef left the broth boiling on high heat for six hours. The broth turned a milky color indicating that the water and oil/fat had actually emulsified — with collagen from pork bones being the emulsifier. This is now widely accepted as the best variety of ramen and gives it the distinct difference to Chinese noodle soups.
We also got to experience a 3-minute broth tasting - to understand the difference between clear broths and tonkotsu (milky) broths.
Varun, studying the ancient texts on ramen-making
This is the man to thank for every late-night post-drinking cup of instant noodles.
The museum was definitely a game changer in my understanding of ramen and I would visit again for sure if I have the time.
Hunting for Dinner in Ebisu
After overeating at the Ramen Museum, we went shopping for a bit and made it back to our neighborhood by about dinner time. Varun and I wandered around Ebisu looking for a place to eat at.
Interesting restaurant logo - mixing the kanji into a blueprint of a room
This image refuses to orient itself vertically on my computer. It's 12:29am right now, I'm gonna leave this comment here and publish it as-is. Ugh. The CSS of this site is a complete mess. I will open-source it tomorrow, maybe one of you can help me out. I did not want to be wrangling CSS on my vacation.
This is what the KFC menu in Tokyo looks like
By this point, we had got it in our heads that we wanted to have Japanese curry with a pork cutlet (katsu) – which we spotted at a random restaurant but they said they were out of stock, so the search continued.
Eventually, we walked past this restaurant. 3 years ago, on our first visit to Japan, this is the first ramen restaurant we went to (after much wandering). We stopped by, not because we wanted ramen, but to ask the guy who worked there if he knew any good katsu places nearby.
He pointed us back to the mall above the metro station (where we started this search), and told us about two restaurants there.
Dinner
The menu in the display window
We beelined straight to Katsui (I think that's what it was called, Google Maps isn't turning up any results though). I'll let Varun tell you all about it though:
The table is served a bowl of roasted black and white sesame seeds along with a pestle to grind it. Grinding the sesame seeds releases an aroma that reminds you of home and your mother’s molagapudi (chili powder with sesame seeds and lentils).
You then mix in a Japanese tangy, sticky, brown tonkatsu sauce similar to Worcestershire sauce. Next, you take a small bowl and fill it with finely grated green cabbage. Then, you top it with the sauce mix you just created. Now you pour in an incredible, zesty yuzu soy sauce. The acidity kicks you awake. Finallly, you add in a touch of cream dressing. Fold it all in gently together with the cabbage.
Eat. You have now eaten one of the best salads in your life.
The Katsu curry was absolutely delicious. Heavily breaded, crunchy, flaky, juicy, tender, mind-blowing, mind-blaaasting, the pork cutlets were absolutely amazing. Especially the ones filled with cheese! I have definitely not had Katsu of this caliber in San Francisco’s Japan town.
Cheese oozing out of the cheese-stuffed katsu
Demolished
Random Snacks of the Day
Here's a new segment for the blog – the random
snacks that we eat through the day:
This is from a Pokémon Veg+Fruit juice option - seems like
there's a random different Pokémon on each drink. This one
is Lapras. I appreciate that they seem to all be Gen I Pokémon.
A Google Photos Montage
← Day 2
Day 4 →
Commute to Shinjuku
This is a garden next to my Aunt's house
We stop through this bakery every morning on our way to the train station. This is a ham and cheese pastry. The bread is absolutely delicious!
Cigarettes sold in vending machines
Walking around Shinjuku while the folks get coffee
Harambe's Café?
Stumbled across this beautiful Buddha
Sakura at Shinjuku Gyoen Park
Shinjuku Goyen is one of the best spots for viewing beautiful, intermingling Sakura, and that’s where we spent our Sunday morning.
It wasn’t exactly a peaceful stroll through a park though, as hordes of people scrambled for a glimpse of the ephemeral flowers. Families and friends gathered for picnics under its shade, seemingly settling down for the next three to four hours at least. As a result, tourists (like us), attempted and failed to take photos of ourselves with the trees while excluding other humans.
"Hordes" of people lining up to enter the park
Families and friends picnicking under the trees
Trying to get a picture without other people in the shot is near impossible...
It was definitely worth the hype, however in the future I may look out for locations that are not as densely populated.
Quick Photo Competition – which of these shots
do you think is better? Here are mine (Vidur's):
And here are Varun's:
Let us know in the comments!
Commute to Shin-Yokohoma
I occasionally play this great board game called Tokaido
with my board game group. 10/10 would recommend.
Shin-Yokohama Rāmen Museum
Nobody told me that I would be visiting heaven on this trip.
The museum was built for people to experience Japan in the early 20th century. A set of stairs descended into an artificially created town, complete with disheveled homes, clothes line hanging from house to house, narrow streets, a night sky, shops, bars, and of course, plenty of ramen restaurants.
We had our pick from over 9 ramen restaurants, each one specializing in a particular type of broth. Half portions of ramen were available so that customers could try food from more than one restaurant without broth pouring out of all their orifices.
The experience was ideal to try different broths and noodle varieties in quick succession. In my everyday life, back in San Francisco, there’s usually a gap of about a month between different bowls of ramen. This makes it hard to remember the exact differences between the broths at various restaurants. At the museum, it was easy to tell here which broth was richer, which had a meatier flavor, which was saltier, etc.
We don't have many photos of the bowls themselves
unfortunately...a little too focused on the eating :|
We discovered the half portion button a little late into the expedition. We could've easily downed a couple more kinds of ramen otherwise...
The museum section had a good bit of information about the history of ramen. The origin of ramen is Chinese noodle soups (of course). The way broths were made for soups was to simmer meat on a low flame for a period of time. Over time, people started adding pork and green onions which were atypical for Chinese noodle soups. However, the tonkotsu variety of ramen, which is now so famous, was an accidental discovery when a chef left the broth boiling on high heat for six hours. The broth turned a milky color indicating that the water and oil/fat had actually emulsified — with collagen from pork bones being the emulsifier. This is now widely accepted as the best variety of ramen and gives it the distinct difference to Chinese noodle soups.
We also got to experience a 3-minute broth tasting - to understand the difference between clear broths and tonkotsu (milky) broths.
Varun, studying the ancient texts on ramen-making
This is the man to thank for every late-night post-drinking cup of instant noodles.
The museum was definitely a game changer in my understanding of ramen and I would visit again for sure if I have the time.
Hunting for Dinner in Ebisu
After overeating at the Ramen Museum, we went shopping for a bit and made it back to our neighborhood by about dinner time. Varun and I wandered around Ebisu looking for a place to eat at.
Interesting restaurant logo - mixing the kanji into a blueprint of a room
This image refuses to orient itself vertically on my computer. It's 12:29am right now, I'm gonna leave this comment here and publish it as-is. Ugh. The CSS of this site is a complete mess. I will open-source it tomorrow, maybe one of you can help me out. I did not want to be wrangling CSS on my vacation.
This is what the KFC menu in Tokyo looks like
By this point, we had got it in our heads that we wanted to have Japanese curry with a pork cutlet (katsu) – which we spotted at a random restaurant but they said they were out of stock, so the search continued.
Eventually, we walked past this restaurant. 3 years ago, on our first visit to Japan, this is the first ramen restaurant we went to (after much wandering). We stopped by, not because we wanted ramen, but to ask the guy who worked there if he knew any good katsu places nearby.
He pointed us back to the mall above the metro station (where we started this search), and told us about two restaurants there.
Dinner
The menu in the display window
We beelined straight to Katsui (I think that's what it was called, Google Maps isn't turning up any results though). I'll let Varun tell you all about it though:
The table is served a bowl of roasted black and white sesame seeds along with a pestle to grind it. Grinding the sesame seeds releases an aroma that reminds you of home and your mother’s molagapudi (chili powder with sesame seeds and lentils).
You then mix in a Japanese tangy, sticky, brown tonkatsu sauce similar to Worcestershire sauce. Next, you take a small bowl and fill it with finely grated green cabbage. Then, you top it with the sauce mix you just created. Now you pour in an incredible, zesty yuzu soy sauce. The acidity kicks you awake. Finallly, you add in a touch of cream dressing. Fold it all in gently together with the cabbage.
Eat. You have now eaten one of the best salads in your life.
The Katsu curry was absolutely delicious. Heavily breaded, crunchy, flaky, juicy, tender, mind-blowing, mind-blaaasting, the pork cutlets were absolutely amazing. Especially the ones filled with cheese! I have definitely not had Katsu of this caliber in San Francisco’s Japan town.
Cheese oozing out of the cheese-stuffed katsu
Demolished
Random Snacks of the Day
Here's a new segment for the blog – the random
snacks that we eat through the day:
This is from a Pokémon Veg+Fruit juice option - seems like
there's a random different Pokémon on each drink. This one
is Lapras. I appreciate that they seem to all be Gen I Pokémon.
A Google Photos Montage