Noodles and more Noodles - Sept 27, 2020

You may have noticed there has been a fairly large gap of time between this post and the pervious one. During the gap David had to go back to the states for personal reasons. While he was gone I didn't do too much 'sightseeing'. For fun during that time I hung out with friends and went to shrine sales. A shrine sale is like going to a flea market, but it's located at a shrine and filled with asian antiques rather than junk. They have become my favorite thing in Japan. You just never know what unique item you will stumble across next. I now have multiple collections I never knew I wanted: kokeshi dolls, shishi dogs, cast iron lanterns, cast iron wind-chimes.... I definitely have a problem. Below are a few of my favorite finds.

After David returned, due to COVID regulations, we spent two weeks under Restriction of Motion before we could resume playing tourist.

Once released we decided to go explore more of Yokohama. This time our adventure was unintentionally noodle themed. We arrived at lunchtime and started with the Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum. The museum itself is small with two displays discussing the history of ramen and the various ingredients. The real draw is in the basement. The basement is set up like the streets of Tokyo in 1958.

There are 9 ramen shops showcasing various types of ramen, a cafe, and an old fashioned candy shop. We wanted to try as many types of ramen as we could so we ordered a small bowl of burnt soy sauce ramen from the first shop we stopped at.

It was SO good! It had an underlying nutty toasted flavor. We were both full afterwards so we decided to take a break and learn how to make ramen noodles the traditional way.

We were provided with a ball of dough that we then pounded out flat using a large bamboo stick while hopping on one leg. It's probably easier for you to watch the video than for me to try to explain further.

The dough was folded, turned and reflattened in this manner a few times. My leg muscles and coordination started to fail me as the hopping went on. Once the dough was flat and long enough we took it over to the cutter to slice our noodles.

They bagged the noodles and provided two different flavors of soup base to try, salt and soy sauce. We were told to cook and eat our ramen within 3 days so you can guess what we had for dinner the next two nights. It really is a rough life (sarcasm). We were disappointed to find we had failed to work up an appetite from all the hopping and reluctantly left the ramen museum without ordering another bowl. I hope to go back again someday for lunch so we can try another type of ramen.

Our next stop was the Cup Noodles Museum. We learned all about the inspiration behind instant soup in a cup along with the challenges that had to be overcome to bring the idea to furition. For example, the noodles are fried in hot oil before they go in the cup so they will cook at the same rate as the other ingredients.

Once we learned the history it was time to make our own Cup Noodle concoction. We started with decoration our cups.

Once they were stunning pieces of artwork we moved onto filling the cups. We could choose one of 4 broth flavors and four of 12 add-ins. I chose to do the original CupNoodles broth + shrimp + corn + potato + green onions. David chose the Curry Broth + chicken + crab + corn + green onions. Once our selections were made the cups were sealed and shrink wrapped. We then placed them into "air packages" to keep them safe for the trip home.

We were finally starting to get hungry again but by the time we would've made it back to the Ramen Museum they would be closed. Plan B was to have dinner at a cozy outdoor restaurant with amazing views.

It really was a beautiful evening.

I have included photos of our ramen and CupNoodles meals for your viewing pleasure. Pay particular attention to the little chicken flavor pieces in David's CupNoodle. LOL!