Slurp Shop

Tonight our colleagues in Japan took us to a Ramen Noodles restaurant. When I heard that is where we were going I have to admit I was initially disappointed. Ramen has never really excited me....pretty boring and not very tasty. I know guys that lived off Ramen in my fraternity in college (mostly the Maruchan brand pictured here), but I couldn't do it. It was just not filling nor tasty enough for my liking.

We walked into the restaurant and it was a pleasant atmosphere. 2 very large irregular shaped tables made out of tree trunks filled the entire room. Each table sat about 12 people....so you were sitting next to or across from strangers....but I found that pretty humorous. Here is why.

Directly across from me was a mother and a child of about 6 years old. As most Japanese men do, I am assuming the husband/father was still at work. Here is a nice mother and son dinner together out of the house. They received their ramen before we did. Now I know my wife will be reading this and I apologize to her, but the mother was gorgeous. One of the most beautiful women I've seen so far in Japan. She was very well dressed and proper. But then the eating began. Evidentially as I learned once our food arrived, it is proper to slurp your noodles in such a place. Well this women basically buried her face down near her bowl and start grabbing at the noodles (again with CHOPSTICKS) and loudly slurping them into her mouth. This lasted for a good 15 minutes. I almost laughed out loud 3-4 times. Here was a gorgeous, proper Japanese woman, slurping her food like a 5 year old. But with the chopsticks....you really have no choice.

Now to the ramen...My bowl arrived and I took my first bite. INCREDIBLE! So good I took a picture for remembrance. I am not kidding. If ramen in the U.S. were like this, I probably could have lived off of it in college. The soup had such a great flavor and the strips of pork in it were as tender as any filet I've had. I could not get enough of it.
Then I realized...I was slurping like everyone else. It was so good and you wanted so much of it so quickly, that slurping was the only option. You could only keep the noodles on the chopsticks for a few seconds so you moved them to your mouth as fast as possible and slurped them away. I told my colleague that I wanted to go back to the U.S. and open such a restaurant. He said there is a very similar chain that has a few in the U.S. and he thinks there might be one in Chicago. We are going to follow up on that tomorrow in the office. If there is one in Chicago, I am getting the address and going there next time I'm in the city.

What a far cry from Maruchan Instant Noodles! I can now say that I LOVE authentic ramen.

Japan and Jerry Seinfeld

Ok, so I've been in Japan for 4 days now and I can't help but continue to think about Jerry Seinfeld. Why, you may ask? Well it has to do with a certain utensil....or pair of utensils if you call it that.


Its my second trip to Japan in the last 12 months so I don't know why it hit me more the second time than the first. But seriously...I've had 10 meals so far this time in Japan, and on every single one of them, my only choice was chopsticks. Oh wait, I was given a spatula of sorts to take some food off of a grill in front of me. But everywhere I look its chopsticks, chopsticks, and more chopsticks. And every meal I can't help but remember Jerry Seinfeld. This is from episode 90 and a similar rendidtion is from his standup DVD, "I'm telling you for the last time".

I think the thing I admire most about the Chinese is that they're hanging in there with the chopsticks. Because, if you think about it, you know, they've seen the fork... by now. I'm sure they've seen the spoon, they're going, "Yeah, yeah, they're OK... We're going to stay with the sticks." I mean, I don't know how they've missed it: thousands of years ago, Chinese farmer gets up, has his breakfast with the chopsticks, goes out and works all day in the field with a shovel... Hello?... Shovel! Not going out there ploughing 40 acres with a couple of pool cues.

I know he's referring to the Chinese, but the Japanese are the same way. They refuse to give in to the fork or the spoon. Seriously, I've gotten much better at the sticks but I still struggle a lot. I watch colleagues 40+ years old that have been in Japan their whole life and they continuously drop noodles, rice, vegetables, fish, etc.... I can't help but wonder....fork oh fork where are you?

I have noticed one major positive to the chopsticks. It takes so long to use them that you realize you are full much earlier in Japan. Perhaps this is why their population is so ridiculously skinny. I thought it was from the large amounts of walking, but I think it may be even more related to the slow eating and smaller portions. I mean, it would take 2.5 hours to eat a normal American portion with chopsticks.

Oh well....I'm having a blast, but it takes all that is within me to not start laughing out loud each time Seinfeld's lines run through my head at EVERY meal. I actually started giggling last night at dinner. If so much wasn't lost in translation, I'd recite the lines to my Japanese colleagues....but they probably would not find it funny at all. After all, its tradition.

Heading to the land of Ichiro and the gyro-ball....

So my postings have been few and far between the last week. That's because I have been preparing to fly out to Japan tomorrow for a week of work. So, don't expect much else next week either....especially since I'll miss most of the Cubs games (considering they'll be playing around 8 or 9 am in Japan).

Its been a good couple of days for the Cubbies. Two in a row against our hated rival Cardinals. Zambrano and Lilly continue to dominante. 2-out RBIs are still coming. Soriano even got 3 hits last night to break out of a mini slump. Let's keep it up. A sweep today vs the Cardinals would just about eliminate them for good in 2007. Then we move on to Cincy where anything less than 2 wins will be a major disappointment.

In other news the Reds have taken 2 of 3 so far from the Brewers, but the Brewers just acquired Scott Linebrink from the Padres. That bullpen consisting of Villenueva, Wise, Linebrink, Turnbow, and Cordero is flat out disgusting and filthy. You better get to the Brewer starters (which is not easy either), cause I have a feeling from the 7th inning forward, the Brewers will not lose many games from here on out.

GO CUBS GO!