Favorite ramen maker at work in Nakano

There’s an amazing, always crowded ramen shop in Nakano that always features anime music and workers in tank tops, dark tans, and big tattoos. Blondie is my all-time favorite ramen maker.

Ramen is always a holiday

I don’t usually post food photos here, but I have to make an exception for ramen. There is something so porky and so satisfying about this common food.

There must be hundreds of ramen shops in Nakano, each with its own version. My current favorite is “Yokohama” style, on south side of the JR station, and features yankii-ish young cooks who are always wear towels on their sweaty heads.

Ramen is a health food and spirit recharger. It’s like chicken soup for Japanese, only tastier. This post is timed for someone else’s religious holiday: see what you’re missing!

Kitanachelin, or Dirty Michelin, ramen meal in upscale Shibuya suburb

Have you heard about this Japanese TV program, called “Kitanachelin”?! It’s a program that showcases neighborhood restaurants that have great food and are dirty looking. The title combines the word “kitainai” or dirty with an abbreviated version of Michelin, as in the guide to fine dining.

We stumbled into this ramen shop in Sangenjaya using Tabelog. Only when we had ordered did I recognize the proud trophy on the counter. I wonder when they won the coveted prize: the food was OK but not great, and the place merely untidy rather than over-the-top filthy.

Introducing Nakamura Shido: Guest post by Kathryn

Guest Post: Created by Kathryn of Project Kathryn.

Readers, you are in for a huge treat!

After I complained that many of my loyal fangirl readers seem fixated on the super-young (at least from the perspective of this cougar, aka milf), Kathryn volunteered to introduce adorable Nakamura Shido. I love how her profile includes Arashi, Kathryn’s favorite group, and Donki! Thanks, Kathryn!!

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Shido Nakamura is apparently a famous Kabuki actor.  Not being up with such cultured things like that, I only really noticed him when watching Letters from Iwo Jima (a damn fine movie – I resisted watching it for ages because I hate war movies but I’d highly recommend it).

After that, he became known (to me) as “the guy from Letters… no, not Nino, not Watanbe Ken, the other guy…”

Then I found out all about his kabuki past (he then became “the kabuki guy from Letters from Iwo Jima”) and, suddenly kabuki didn’t seem so boring.  I could sit though some traditional Japanese theatre for Nakamura-san.

More recently he was a guest on Arashi ni Shiyagare – http://www.dramacrazy.net/japanese-variety/arashi-ni-shiyagare-episode-3/ as the “big brother” guest.  He taught Arashi how to make ramen in a manly fashion *swoon*.  He has a quiet, dry sense of humor you rarely see in guests on Japanese variety shows.  But best of all, he talked about how, when he gets lonely in the middle of the night, he goes shopping at Don Quixote!   And he loves it when he gets recognised and asked for autographs and photos.  He (cleverly, perhaps) didn’t say which branch he shops at because that could possibly be opening the floodgates of fangirl stalking.

Still, good looks, manliness, sense of humor and shopping at Donki = a combination that will win my heart.

Hard Gay saves ramen shop

Hard Gay, with his super-short leather pants and thrusting “hip radar,” is a controversial character. An exaggerated gay clown, as if his “hard” attitude makes him gayer than the average closeted gay person in Japan.

On the other hand, this clip shows him helping a ramen store, interacting with potential customers on the street and even clowning around with small children in a playground. Sort of Bruno-esque, but with none of the violent reaction you would expect in most parts of the US. (Credit: J-son, via his pal at Oracle).

What do you think of Hard Gay??