Tigers and Cranes

talking about my trip to sapporo beer museum reminded me of the time i ate at the ramen yokocho in sapporo. i’d read somewhere that this is one of the sites that a person must visit while in sapporo.

now, i loves me some ramen, and i don’t mean them instant packs. i’m talking about a big steaming bowl of yellowish noodles with heapings of toppings and maybe a bowl of fried rice besides. they say that best ramen comes from hakata(fukuoka) and sapporo. while i can’t say that i’ve tasted hakata ramen(i’ve only been there to catch the hydrofoil to hop across to busan), i will say this about sapporo ramen. bring your appetite.

i had to find this place, and everyone i asked pointed me to the shin ramen yokocho, one of those newly built pale imitator of the real, original thing. i’m talking about the grungy little alley jam packed with noodly goodness.

let me tell you something… the place is so small that i must’ve passed by it five times before i realized that the entrance to this mecca of ramen is about the size of your average daliy yamazaki conbini store facade.

once i entered, it seemed like there were ten to twelve shops packed side by side, and i couldn’t tell you why i picked the one i did, but most likely because it was the grungiest of them all. hokkaidou being a seafood heaven that it is(try hakodate for the best damn seafood in the world), i had to try the crab and seafood miso ramen… good lord, the bowl came laden with a whole adolescent squid! and mussels, clams, and yes, a heap of hairy crabs(that what they call ‘em!) man, i’m nearly crying as i type this.

i’ll have you know, it was delicious as hell, but i paid the price. a half an hour later, my stomach was doing hoola hoops around my ass. thank goodness for nearby popeye 24 hour internet/manga cafe.

a bit of trivia: miso ramen was invented in sapporo. so i highly recommend that’s what you sample when you are there. ramen yokocho is practically in the middle of susukino district, and like i said, can be easy to miss. so make sure you ask someone, but pass on the shin ramen yokocho. that’s for punks and ramen sissies.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 28th, 2006 at 1:15 am and is filed under japan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.