Ramen Happiness: Gita: Bowl #7

Another late-night noodle craving took Husband and me out to the edge of town to a shop called こってりらーめんGita (Kotteri Ramen Gita). As mentioned in earlier posts, こってり (kotteri) means rich or strong and the picture of the bowl posted in the Komachi magazine looked as though it agreed with the name. It was about 9:15pm when we pulled up outside the shop and were pleased to see there were still quite a number of people eating for how late it was. We chose seats with a nice view into the large kitchen as Husband is really interested in the layouts and equipment in Ramen shops.

The menu offered a number of options including 醤油 (shoyu) Ramen, 味噌 (miso) Ramen, つけ面 (tsukemen) and Japanese curry and rice. The showcased bowl in the magazine was the rich and fatty shoyu ramen and I decided to stick with their recommendation while Husband chose to try the tsukemen dipping noodles. We also ordered a plate of 餃子 (gyoza), or little meat and veggie filled pot-stickers, and used one of the coupons that came in the magazine bringing their grand total to about one dollar.

Our dinner arrived quickly to our table and we surveyed all the food we had just ordered, a lot for not being very hungry. The soup smelled fantastic and had a nice splattering of fat coating the surface. The toppings were plentiful; menma, green onion, bean sprouts and a large piece of fatty chashu pork lying partly draped over the edge of the bowl. I took a few sips of the broth and confirmed that it was indeed quite rich and strong with porky flavor. I devoured my firm but chewy noodles and as many of the bean sprouts as I could handle before sampling the chashu. The pork wasn’t as flavorful as others I have tasted, it was clearly meant to soak up the soup for its taste and not stand on its own, but it was a fairly large piece so that was a plus.

Husband was a little let down with his dinner. There was a pretty decent sized pile of noodles in the bowl and surrounded by a plethora of toppings, but the broth, that is supposed to be strong and bold with flavor, was more on the weak side. Other orders of つけ面 we have eaten boasted rich and hearty soup that coats the noodles with flavor. Since you are not drinking the soup directly from a spoon, like is done with regular Ramen, it is important that the taste makes a statement. The つけ面 that Husband ate last night didn’t make such a lasting memory. The oily bowl of liquid tasted a little like garlic and pepper, and that is about it. He still finished his small mountain of noodles, but felt as though he was robbed a little of the strong flavors we have grown accustomed to when eating つけ面. The gyoza we had as a side dish were crispy, soft and bursting with juicy pork, they added to the meal and made up for some of the downsides.

It was finally time to head home and after paying for our dinner the book was rewarded with its seventh stamp. It is crazy that only one week has passed and already half of the restaurants that are participating in this challenge in my town have been visited. I will need to pace myself to not run out of places to visit that are within a twenty mile radius. This weekend looks to be our first travel weekend with a trip planned to Niigata city where there are many Ramen Rally shops to choose from and a few more stamps to be had.