I dig deep in my pockets with a semi-chilled hand struggling to grab some yen. It’s 2 degrees outside and my bones are shivering in the cold. My buddy and I have passed a few restaurants and have peered at many glass displays of plastic laminated dishes. My mind calculated conversions several times and finally, I was ready to enter the opened door covered in black clothe and finally order dinner.
I enter a recently opened restaurant along Jupiter Street and I thought I was right smack back in a street alley in Tokyo, Japan 6 years ago. There is a street cart, a barbershop, store fronts, cobblestones around that give an illusion of being in the country of the Rising Sun with ninjas waiting to slide down the roof shutters and pounce on you with karate chops.
The only stretching of the fingers happening here is my balancing act of holding chopsticks while picking food off my plate or soup bowl.
UCC Coffee franchised Mitsuyado Seimen from Japan and made it available locally. Let’s see what it has to offer.
On the table
Karashi Tsukemen P250 / regular
Mitsuyado Seimen Ramen with a sub line of House of Tsukumen makes me deduce its specialty is Tsukumen. I hit google and typed the word on the box. Tsukemen literally means dipping noodles. Noodles are served with dipping soup and toppings on the side, deviating from the usual way the Japanese eat ramen.
Cold noodles lay on a white plate with a bowl of soup or more appropriately, dipping sauce. The way I ate it was to pick up the noodles with my chopsticks and lower it on the red dipping sauce. I watch as the semi-thick noodles slither in the small bowl absorbing what it can from it swimming spree. I take a bite of the newly soaked noodles and a sip of the soup and enjoy the chewy texture and spicy flavor.
Marutoku P80
If you feel you want more toppings on your Tsukumen, order the Marutoku which is a small plate of all extra things you might need to accompany your ramen or Tsukumen, like yasai or chopped sautéed veggies, seaweed, char siu or pork slice, and the soft boiled Japanese egg.
Recent Table Guest