Torimen is an Udon noodle shop near our apartment in Tsutsujigaoka. Their udon soup is fantastic and they recently expanded their menu including some Ramen options. This Ramen was good but not great, the broth is much better suited to their Udon soups and instead of pork there was piece of Chicken which was also good but not standout good. For now on I will stick with their Udon which is top notch.

The second of my Ramen double whammy was this incredible bowl of Kakuni Ramen at Tetsuya in Koenji. After getting totally soaked and cold at the Awa Odori festival Ramen was the perfect choice for warming up. This shops headquarters are located up north in Hokkaido and this is their only location in Tokyo. The kakuni which is chunks of fatty stewed pork was just amazing. I can’t wait o go back and have another bowl.

This is the first of an unusual and unhealthy (but totally tasty) double Ramen day. Jiraigen Ramen in Daitabashi was really excellent. There was nothing standout about any one part of this Ramen but the whole bowl worked well in harmony. This shops tag line is ” Japanese Soul Food Noodle” and the whole shop was decorated with American Jazz, Soul and R&B memorabilia.

A hole bunch of us went to see the Awa Odori Dance festival in Koenji. This is a major festival occurring every year in Koenji (高円寺). Unfortunately the festival occurred at the same time a Typhoon was brushing past Tokyo so we had a bit of rain but we managed to see a lot of dancers before we got dumped on. The bad weather also meant that all the drums and lanterns were covered with plastic but despite these setbacks the dancers and crowd all seemed in good spirits.

I went to check out this actual size statue of a Gundam robot in Odaiba. This was built to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Gundam and was on display for 3 months. Besides it being a super cool giant robot (which is more than enough for me) the head moved along with lights and steam shooting out of its chest.

It is short but I think this one fits snugly in my engrish category.

A new Kushiage (fried food on skewers) place opened in Tsutsujigaoka. The food is good but the service is pretty slow but it adds a nice change of paces to go in the neighborhood.

Another bowl of Ramen in Koenji. This one turned out to be fairly disappointing. When it was served my expectations were fairly high since it certainly looked like it was gonna taste great. But unfortunately I found the flavor to be quite bland overall. This was the Black Ramen, they also had Red and white, perhaps one of those will be more exciting? I did happen to finally get the name of a previous Ramen from right across the street which was Tabushi, their Ramen was quite good and I will have to go back for another bowl.

Shiranui

Tabushi

It has been a long time coming but today I had to officially take a break from Kyokushin Karate. I have a leg injury which can only be described as feeling like a hot knife being stabbed in the center of my thigh. I have actually been dealing with this for nearly 5 years but it has finally become too much and has forced me into this break from Karate. I am so disappointed about this and it truly feels like something inside me died today. I really hope I can get this injury taken care of so that I can rejoin my Kyokushin family soon.