A tale of two tsukemen

As a noodle newbie, I am unclear why the noodles and the broth in tsukemen are served separately, but that doesn't stop me from loving the dish and its neat presentation, so reminiscent of little kids who don't like their meat touching their veggies or their veggies touching their bread.

Why don't the noodles arrive in the broth, as they do in normal ramen?  Is it for fear of their becoming soggy or absorbing too much liquid?  Is the broth too strong, salty, or spicy to marinate the noodles in for more than a few seconds? Is it a visual thing, proving that the noodles are clean and the broth is stuffed full of goodies?

I've noticed that the Japanese like to see what exactly is going into their stomachs before it goes there.  When our waiter was preparing okonimiyaki, for instance, we were presented a neatly arranged bowl of shrimp, squid, pork, and beef, spread in a perfect fan around its bed of cabbage, an egg freshly cracked on top, before it was briskly mixed up into a featureless mash and poured onto the grill.

Maybe one is meant to see the components of the noodle bowl - a deconstructed noodle bowl far before molecular cuisine came to co-opt that term.

No matter.  Tsukemen needs no justification.

In Tokyo, we had it using ramen noodles; in Osaka, using soba.

In Tokyo, we custom-ordered using a machine.

Buttons for big and small bowls, buttons for spicy broth, buttons for pork belly.  Buttons for sides.  A ticket emerged, and we handed it to our bandanna-ed chef, who had been next to us the whole time, trying to be helpful with limited English.  "Pork-u." (stabbing finger).  "No pork-u." (stabbing other finger).  "Big spicy." (gesturing widely).  "Now you."

In Osaka, I sat down alone at a bar full of cheery izakaya-goers, said tentatively: "Soba... tsukemen?" and after listening to, and understanding none of, a stream of confirmatory responses by the waitress, I was off.

In Tokyo, the portion size was massive.  Even the small was virtually unfinishable.  The aggressively fishy, aggressively salty broth spilled over with piles of green onions, the sides of the bowl petaled with pork belly slices which melted in my mouth like good toro.  The most surprising part of the meal, though, was the boiled egg: somewhere in between hard- and soft-boiled, its yolk bright orange and creamy and its white like jello, this was by far the best boiled egg I've had anywhere.  Santouka's rubbery soy-egg will do no longer.

In Osaka, the noodles came piled and tangled in a wooden basket.  They were flecked with purple yam pieces and textured slightly tacky. They held their cool temperature even when dipped in the hot, deep-red, heavily-chilied oily broth that came with them, so slurping them after dipping felt like a Scandinavian sauna/snow cycle on my lips.  The big hunk of cooked tuna floating in the broth provided me with something to gnaw on as my lips tingled, a feeling not terribly unlike the initial numbing of Sichuan peppers.

In Tokyo, I quenched my salt-soaked mouth with cold water, despite the rain outside; in Osaka, they provided scalding tea as another adventure for my lips, despite the near-100 degree outdoor temperatures.

Eating a statue's food

Item #1 on our Tokyo itinerary was a neighborhood, Sugamo, known to the locals as 'grandmother's Harajuku" (obasan no Harajuku) for its preponderance of old ladies and shops catering to old ladies.

It took us a little while, but eventually we got swept up in a tide of canes and walkers and found ourselves on a long, flat, bustling street adorned with tissue paper flags, shops selling lucky red granny panties and the latest in old lady fashion.  There were also tons of pastry bars.

We stopped at the busiest pastry bar, right on the corner across from a temple.  Having spent lots of time both at Good Mong Kok Bakery in San Francisco and at what is supposed to be the most popular egg custard spot in Beijing, I feel quite at ease in a crowd of old ladies speaking a different language, throwing elbows and jostling at counters.  This particular jostling crowd, though, turned out to be a very polite Japanese jostling crowd; I sidled in, dukes up, ready to fight, and the crowd just sort of organically melted away.  My turn came before I'd even checked out the goods!

Eugene eyed a skewer of 4 glutinous-looking balls covered in viscous-looking brown liquid, and as he did so, a lady behind the counter, through gestures, asked what seemed to be akin to 'What are you going to do with this?  Are you going to eat it?'

A strange implication, but one that didn't deter him.  He bought the skewer.  I bought an egg sesame bun.

We stepped back from the counter to try them out.  His skewer oozed mystery syrup onto the napkin it sat on and from there onto the pavement below, rolling and undulating at a glacial speed.

It looked incredibly unappetizing, and his face after he tried it confirmed this - but I still wanted a ball for the sake of holding to my eating-everything-itude.

He held the still-oozing napkin up to my mouth as I gingerly lifted the skewer and turned my head sideways to try and bite off a piece without smearing myself in goo.

It tasted like a lukewarm rice ball covered in a cross between maple syrup and teriyaki sauce.

My lips sticking confusedly to my tongue and teeth, I raised my eyes from the skewer and saw that there were two old ladies standing next to me and peering into my face.  They looked delighted - and very amused.  "Oiishi desu ka?!" they chirped, grinning widely at each other and at me.

I smiled back at them even though syrup was probably dripping grotesquely from my face.

We continued along our way to a statue with a roped queue leading to it: it was surrounded by older people, who were dipping saucers in a bubbling faucet at its feet, wetting one of a stack of washcloths that sat at the faucet's base, and vigorously and thoroughly scrubbing the statue clean before making quick bows and departing.

There were other statues around.

They had offerings at their feet.

Guess what their offering boxes were full of?

We accidentally ate statue food.