Ramen Happiness: えいしん: Bowl #5

After reading about this restaurant in the magazine I was really excited to try it out. From the pictures alone it was obvious that the soup would be to Husband’s and my liking. えいしん (Eishin) is located a little out of town on the way north along the beach towards Niigata city. We have passed by it a few times on our way to go swimming in the ocean and avoid the “海の家 (umi no ie)”, or “pay us to go to the beach”, setups that occupy Joetsu’s city beach area.

The Komachi magazine has reviews of all the shops and breaks them down into categories like こってり (kotteri, - rich flavor), つけ面 (tsukemen - cold noodles for dipping into a separate broth), or 辛い (karai - spicy). えいしん is listed under the top ten to check out for their chashu. The Japanese believe that うま味 (umami) is the fifth basic taste alongside sweet, sour, bitter and salty and is said to be a taste all its own along the lines of what we would call savory. Wikipedia’s description of うま味 states that:

People taste umami through receptors for glutamate, commonly found in its salt form as the food additive monosodium glutamate (MSG). For that reason, scientists consider umami to be distinct from saltiness.

The magazine describes the chashu at えいしんas rich with うま味, so it was clear we were in for a savory delight for our dinner.

As previously mentioned, Husband and I have a preference for rich, strong flavoring when it comes to Ramen broth. When our bowls were handed to us over the counter from the chef we instantly knew we were not going to be disappointed. The aroma alone was incredible, hearty notes of pork wafted up from the steaming bowl. The soup was clear, brown, and rich with shoyu flavor. After spending the first few minutes just lapping up spoonfuls of the delicious broth, which was very light for being so flavorful, we moved on to the rest of the bowl. The noodles were straight and thin, but with great texture and cooked perfectly. There were no doubts about the noodles not being done right after seeing the chef testing the doneness of the boiling hot noodles by checking them with his bare hands.

The Ramen was topped with the usual menma and sliced green onions, but a first for us on this adventure was a piece of steamed bok choy. And then there was the chashu. The magazine certainly did not mislead us in believing that this pork would be amazing. We each ordered chashu-men so as to have more than just one or two pieces to enjoy, and we are both thankful we chose this option. The meat was so soft and tender it fell apart with the slightest pressure. The flavor can only be described as the truest definition of うま味. The whole bowl came together in a perfect collaboration of savory meat, rich broth and chewy noodles.

The Husband was in heaven. He is, obviously, the biggest fan of my homemade Ramen experiments, and stated that this was the closest in taste to how I make mine. A great compliment to me as I was worried my soup may be a little too rich for some. Clearly this isn’t an issue at えいしん as this shop has been open for at least thirty years and has also been doing delivery Ramen for that long. Delivery Ramen! We got to watch the staff assemble quite a large delivery order that came in by phone while we were eating. Each bowl was assembled, covered in a rubber banded saran wrap combo, stacked in a shelved metal box and then whisked away by the fanny-pack wearing wife of the chef.

Fully satisfied we paid for our dinner and left the shop, only after checking out the third and final bonus quiz question. It asked if the stools seats that lined the counter were green, they were red so this was another X mark circled in the stamp book. Upon further translation attempts, I think the quiz has something to do with choosing your three favorite shops and answering the questions to win a bonus prize. えいしん will certainly make the list for being one of our top three favorite spots in town.