Inaka Soba

As I've been learning more about soba (eating my way through the text book), I came across this odd set of kanji that I didn't realize was the writing of "Inaka" or "country." Now ordinarily this would have no meaning but I read a few months ago that a famous soba restaurant in Tokyo called Matsugen opened up in New York City and their Inaka soba are drawing incredible reviews. Never got the chance to go in NYC, but nothing stopping me from getting Inaka soba in Japan. Turns out the closest soba-ya to my house (30 second walk) is one of the places that has the hand made, hand cut, inaka soba that I've been looking for. (Matsugen in Tokyo isn't as easy to get to but I will be there just for the sake of a NYC comparison)
First time I went, it was 1pm and the hand cut soba was sold out. ANother things I realized is that the hand cut places usually only have the handcut on special order and limited quantity, at least in Tokyo. This place only makes 10 orders a day, after that you get a machine made or god forbid purchased noodles. The places I ate at in Nagano had at least 50 orders of the hand cut stuff, but Nagano seems to be the expert on these things.
So I went back the next week, early. The difference between handcut and not was apparent, as well as inaka and not inaka. Inaka uses a courser milled whole soba flour so the noodles were very dark, with flecks of soba kernels. These were hearty, hearty, noodles. When you bit down there was almost a crunch as you hit the larger pieces. I personally prefer heartier noodles no matter what the culture - I'll take fettucine over spaghetti anyday and I only eat angel hair once a year. There was a sweetness and complexity that machine made or purchased noodles did not have and the big, thick noodles were much more fun to slurp.
Now that I have a little income coming, I can be on the lookout for some more soba places to drop into in addition to Matsugen. I'd love to try the opposite of the Inaka, called Sarashina, which is a very finely milled noodle, as well as various flavors like macha, mugwort, and ume. As they come up I'll post them.
Here's the "special" back page of the menu with the info on the Inaka soba with the picture of the old soba man rolling out the dough in a pain of a process (no gluten in buckwheat). That means like trying to build something without screws or nails - nothing to hold the dough together chemically.
Translation: Inaka soba is stone ground with its with its hull intact, made from 80 percent buckwheat and 20 percent wheat flour. It is a healthy soba made with the hand-cutting technique.

Waseda's Number One Ramen

Two ramen posts separated by two months, and only two ramen posts in two months. That's pretty sad. I was back in America for a bit with a busted camera so didn't post for way too long. But now that I am back in Japan I can start up again.

This above specimen is from the #1 ranked Ramen shop in the Waseda/Takadanobaba area, one that my dining partner told me that caters to the student tastes. Waseda publishes a yearly review of classes, ramen, and other eateries, and this one took the top spot. Big, Heavy, lots of calories for hte money plus an all you can eat rice bowl. Minoru and I are going to be meeting every Monday for our language exchange, starting with a lunch, so I think there will be more ramen and never ending rice bowls. Although not healthy, its part of Waseda's culture and I may be able to get into it.

Tsukemen aside, there are 4 main styles of ramen, grouped by soup style. There is shio (salt), shouyu (soy sauce+pork/chicken broth) which is the most common in Tokyo, Tonkotsu (literally translated "Pork Bone" but has much more pork than that), and miso (soybean paste with some other heaviness in it, occasionally butter as well.) I have eaten all but miso, and like the lighter ones better, but I did have an awesome tonkotsu in the Ramen museum in Yokohama.

So on to this prized tonkotsu. First, we waited about 20 minutes to get in the shop. Second, what I liked, was you could specifiy the stregth of the broth, the texture (hard/soft) of the noodles, and how much oil is added. I chose normal broth, noodles on the hard side, and no extra oil (not needed). Made sure I got an extra ni tamago too.

Let's get to the main part of this bowl: the soup. Minoru admitted that this was an especially heavy, rich broth. Most tonkotsu is white, this one was brown taking flavors from the pork and soy sauce. Remember, this was the normal preparation, there is an even thicker one. The soup tasted like drinking pork gravy, or liquid pork. Flavor was drawn from boiling bones, fat, skin, meat, everything, for a very very long time to produce a thick and creamy pork sauce. It's rich, tounge-covering sensation was part from the collogen in the bones, a normal occurance in western stocks, but the fat had perfectly emulsified in the broth as well, going back to the gravy sensation, except there was no roux base. It was salty, heavy, and packed a wallup. Many glasses of water were needed while eating this bowl, not that it was bad, it was beautiful, but it was work as well.

From now on I will be sure to order noodles "katame" or on the hard side. Other than texture and firmness, taste didn't offer much. Or maybe that was because the soup was everywhere and stuck to the noodles like a cream sauce.

Moving from there, the the chashu (pork) set on top of the bowl was the best I have had. It was not one of those silly looking pinwheels of belly. It was plenty fatty, but thick and retained the texture of meat rather than the flimsier and thinner chashu, something I want when biting into a piece of meat. The nori/broth combination was wonderful, absorbing the fat and richness of the broth but not becoming soggy. A wetter, thinner soup sinks right in. Green spinach on the top added a nice textural change from the richness, but wouldn't call it a palate-cleanser.

This stall is a master of pork. Chashu is the best so far and if I have to measure a bowl on pure porky richness they win hands down. But I was not in the mood for a BBQ and still wanted to function the rest of the day, and I have to admit that this bowl and that soup kicked my ass. To a Japanese student, who is used to this type of stuff since childhood, I can see how the shop takes number one and I give them a ton of credit for inventing a roux-less gravy and the worlds first pork drink, but I liked the previous tsukemen better because not only was the soup good, but it didn't over power everything else. I like to taste my noodles and the egg always steals my heart. One downside to the thickness is you don't get the contrast of the creamy egg to the savory, flavorful, but not thinner soup, which I find so appealing in shio and shouyu ramens. I will absolutely give tonkotsu another chance, but just not here, and not in the middle of the day. Tonkotsu heaviness is a dinner thing.