北斗: Bowl #14

Deciding to forego the Echigo Two Day rail pass for the weekend meant traveling in search of Ramen stamps by car. The car leased to me by my work is tiny, fuel efficient, and comical. It sounds like a go-kart, and goes just a little faster. A little over an hour away is the city of Nagaoka; a medium sized city about half way between Joetsu and Niigata. The weather was lovely, and we did not feel like paying tolls, so we headed north up the coast and enjoyed the view of the ocean.  Once we arrived in Nagaoka we decided to divide and conquer, no use wasting another travelling day by only eating at one shop.

The first one we selected was more towards the center of town. Following the small map included in the stamp book, as well as using our cars super handy GPS, we headed off in the right direction. Apparently, we crossed a bridge that must have been built recently as it was not yet programmed into the GPS. It was pretty amusing to watch the little arrow that represented our car as it flew across a large river and landed on the other side. The shop was easy to locate, but parking was not. Clearly a popular spot in town, the whole lot was full of cars and it took about 15 minutes of waiting before someone left their spot open for me to park.

北斗 (Hokuto) was a busy little shop. After seeing a bowl of the shoyu ramen pass by we both knew we had to have some, so we got in line for the ticket machine and anxiously awaited our turn.  Tickets in hand Husband and I then got in the que to be seated.  Finally after about ten minutes of watching amazing looking bowls of ramen fly by we got two seats at the counter style island in the middle of the room. The wait was nice for Husband who got to stand and stare into the kitchen, watching the ramen magic happen.  Another ten minutes went by then the lone waitress zipped over with our steaming hot noodles.

It took but one sip of the broth to understand why北斗was so popular.  The semi clear, but dark and rich soup was delicious with a good balance of shoyu and pork just the way we both like it.  Thinner, chewy noodles laced the bottom of the bowl bringing a healthy coating of the broth with every slurp.  On top of the noodles were green onions, a few strips of fairly tender menma, the classic sheet of nori, some nicely steamed spinach, and a decorative slice of naruto. The meat had lots of flavor and was cut in thick diced chunks, but still tender, separating easily with a pinch from the chopsticks. All in all this was a great choice, a very satisfying ramen indeed.

It is clear that the creators of the Komachi magazine really did their homework when it came to choosing which restaurants to host in their Ramen Rally. Almost every bowl of noodles that has been consumed thus far has had great flavor and an obviously fine-tuned recipe. It feels a little monotonous writing such great reviews of all the dishes that have been sampled on this adventure, but it is really hard to knock something that has undoubtedly been tried, tested and mastered. With my own dream of opening a Ramen restaurant some day, this grand tour of Niigata Ramen shops has been enjoyable not only as a consumer, but as a student as well. Our trip to Nagaoka was not over after just one shop, and coming soon is the story about the bowl that brought the challenge to its half way point!

The shop entrance with the name in Kanji and Romaji.

Delicious Shoyu-men.

Typical Ramen counter setup.