Today’s two hour lunch break offered more time to venture a
little further out of town, so Husband and I set off for たんぽぽらーめん
(Tanpopo Ramen). Being an avid fan of the 1985 movie of the same name had me a
little excited just for the sake of being in a Ramen shop called たんぽぽ. If
you haven’t seen this old movie, you should. It is classified as the first
“Ramen western”, which is playing at the genre of “spaghetti westerns” about
the American Old West. The main story is about two truck drivers, Goro and Gun,
who stop in a run-down Ramen shop owned by a widow named Tanpopo. After
sampling the shop’s subpar noodles, getting a fight with some rough regulars,
and admitting to her that the Ramen isn’t good, Tanpopo begs the guys to stay
and train her to be a real noodle cook. There are several other side stories,
some funny and some very strange, but the central focus is on the relationship
we share with food. It is a great movie that I highly recommend.
This たんぽぽらーめん
is located in a small town about ten minutes from ours and afforded us our
first travel experience, as well as our first time having to hunt and find a
shop with a small, inconveniently placed sign. After pulling over and looking
at the miniscule map in the Komachi magazine we found the restaurant nestled in
a neighborhood amongst family homes and parks. After being welcomed inside and
sitting at the counter, we ordered our lunch. Not being very hungry I ordered
their standard Ramen, while Husband went for the Black Shoyu Ramen. You can
never really go wrong with eating Ramen, whether you are really hungry or not
much so, there is a bowl of soup for every appetite.
Our seats at the counter allowed Husband to watch as they
meticulously prepared our meal. Each move perfected down to a perfect rhythm.
Another great plus about Ramen is that it never takes very long to get your
food. Since most of the elements are prepared ahead of time, all you really
have to wait for is the noodles to boil and the assembly to take place.
The standard Ramen boasted a light and flavorful broth and
just the right amount of toppings. The noodles were yellow and a little firm,
but they had great texture and a nice coating of soup. A topping that I love
that hasn’t been seen yet on this adventure is the soft-cooked egg. It is
always a treat when an egg comes with Ramen and doesn’t have to be ordered as
an extra topping. たんぽぽ had this to offer. Another main plot line from the
movie is the main character’s quest to create the best broth for regular noodle
eaters. Nothing fancy, nothing outlandish, just the perfect soup to compliment
her noodles. They judge the quality of the broth on if the customer finishes
their entire bowl, including drinking the soup. Well, I thought our nearby たんぽぽらーめんhad some great broth and I pretty much finished
every drop.
Interested in tasting new styles of ramen, Husband will
often seek out a bowl he has never tried before. Today’s choice was the Black Shoyu
Ramen. Watching the chefs prepare the
order we could see that this ramen was made up of a combination of canola oil,
dark soy sauce, the same chicken broth as the regular ramen, and the same
toppings including the egg (which he always gives to me). Black Shoyu was a dark and menacing bowl of
what Husband hoped would be a rich soy sauce flavored treat, but in fact was a
bit of a letdown. The broth and noodles
we both only luke warm and did not carry much of the soy flavor past the oil. The noodles were good for being the tiny kind
and held the dark liquid quite well, but would have been better in a much
hotter soup. This ramen came with one
slice of pork that was a great thickness and texture, but didn’t have much
flavor beyond the taste of well, pork.
In all honesty Husbands favorite part about this dish was the ration of
noodles to bean sprouts. Too often the sprouts out way the noodles and ruin the
dish completely. Despite being
unimpressed, Husband still finished his ramen, leaving only oily broth behind.
Despite having both ups and downs, our trip to たんぽぽらーめんwas still a good lunch and provided the 8th
stamp in the Ramen Rally booklet. This weekend looks to be promising with quite
a few tasty-looking shops on the schedule, hopefully pushing the challenge past
the 1/3 mark! With that, I will leave you with one of my favorite scenes from
the たんぽぽ movie. The scene is actually a story being read aloud
by Gun to Goro as they drive, you see them talking about the book for a short
time in the middle of the clip. The wise old noodle master is teaching the
younger man the proper way to eat Ramen and appreciate the perfection of the
dish. Enjoy!
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| たんぽぽらーめん (Tanpopo Ramen) |
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| Shoyu-Ramen |
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| Black Shoyu-Ramen |
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