Much has been gushed about Ippudo Hakata Ramen in New York since its grand opening in March this year — news articles reported that New Yorkers waited in the brutal winter cold for up to 90 minutes to eat a bowl of steaming ramen that was a “religious” experience, as quoted in popular food blog, Serious Eats.

A friend who lives there declared Ippudo was her favorite after eating her way through many ramen shops in the Big Apple. With such a vote of confidence, I had to try this tonkatsu (pork broth) sensation when a couple of friends were in town for a visit.

For kicks, I decided to patronize the very first shop built in Ippudo’s chain, which is located in Ebisu, a chic well-heeled neighborhood known for its cool nightlife and culinary delights.

There wasn’t a line to get in (phew…) but it was pretty full of salarymen and OLs (office ladies). I got a seat immediately and pointed to the fabled Akamaru set. Being Singaporean, it was the natural choice as it’s topped with a spicy paste that is not in the Shiromaru one which is just plain tonkatsu soup.

Large bowls of spicy preserved spinach and bean sprouts were placed at every table — this simple but yummy appetizer whetted my taste buds for what was to come.

The rich, savory flavor of the ramen made everyone at the table slurp in silent appreciation. Oishiiiii (delicious)… The noodles were al dente and slippery, while I was just floored by the complexity of the soup — it was a melange of mysterious minced beans (probably from the spicy paste) and punchy meatiness.

You’ve got to try the sui gyozas (steamed pork dumplings) which swim in a clear, light broth and spring onions. Since I’m Chinese by ethnicity, I’m quite critical of gyozas and these little babies were definitely a five-star experience.

What’s unusual about the yaki gyoza (pan-fried pork dumplings) was it had a smidgen of yuzu (Japanese mandarin) paste on the side. The citrus bite completely transformed its heaviness and you’d feel you could stuff in just a few more.

Did I see the Ramen Gods in Ippudo? Almost, just almost. I’ve yet to find another shop that’s better and it’s no wonder that it’s touted as the best ramen chain in Tokyo.

-

Address: 1-3-13 Hiroo, Hainezu Ebisu, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
Tel: 03-5420-2225
Opening hours: 11am – 4am daily
How to get there: Take the West Exit from Ebisu JR station and head towards Meiji-dori. You’ll spot the shop next to a post office.

Writing for Metblogs has the potential to be the most rewarding experience in your entire life. It’ll make you rich, famous, good looking, will help you lose weight, make your clothes fit better, and get you a super good deal on a new car. It will make you the most well known person on the entire planet. Yes, each and every one of you. Really.

OK maybe not. Actually those are all lies, but it’s fun at least. The truth is Metblogs is the largest network of locally focused blogs on the web, covering almost 60 cities around the world and we’re looking to add a few new bloggers/writters/authors to this fine site. If you wanna know more about us check out this wikipedia entry but it’s kinda boring so I won’t waste time repeating it all here again. If you wanna write for us, here’s the scoop:

• All author positions are volunteer. That means you don’t get paid.
• You must live in (or very near) the city you plan to write about.
• Anything you post must relate to the city somehow. That means you shouldn’t post a movie review, but talking about going to see a movie at a local theater is fine.
• There’s no requirement for how much you can or should write, but we ask that if we set you up as an author you make about 3 posts a week.
• You can post about things you love, you can post about things you hate. It’s entirely up to you

Additionally, because of our global network, there’s plenty of options for things you write to be read by people all over the world. Interested? Want more details? Post a comment and we’ll be in touch!

Following on from yesterday’s post, now it’s time for the photos you really wanted to see: the Girls of the 2007 Tokyo Motor Show.

I’m suffering from it and I can’t even vote. Yes, it is polling day again, for what, the 3rd time in a year?
The BBC is trying to seem interested. I guess it will be like a referendum on Abe’s post-Koizumi reign.

UPDATE (July 30):
Well the people have spoken. It was a Bloody Sunday for the ruling Liberal Democrats (LDP), with the opposition Democrats (DPJ) winning a majority in the Upper House for the first time in its history. The one-party system in Japan seems to finally have come to an end.

Hi Tokyo. I’m in your city for the next week or so and I’m having a blast so far. Normally I’m in Los Angeles, USA but decided I’d wanted to come to Tokyo for too long and not come so so now I’m here. I’m going to try and make a few posts here while I’m in town that don’t sound like a total tourist but I might not be able to pull that off. We’ll see. If you are into the total tourist perspective feel free to read this post from my own personal blog about the trip so far. I’m also posting tons of photos to this flickr set but fair warning there are tons of street scenes and probably things that folks who live here have seen plenty of times and aren’t impressed by any more.

I can say that the trains are not nearly as scary or confusing as I was led to believe before getting here. Everyone I talked to made them out to be completely impossible to navigate and tried to convince me to stay away from them unless I had a well versed guild. Totally not the case, and very easy to use if you know where you are going. Anyway… Nice work with this whole city of yours, I’m enjoying my visit very much!

One early morning in Tokyo last week, there was a baby found still alive in the garbage. It was so shocking that it reminded Japanese people of the akachan-post/baby post that was placed in Kumamoto Pref. just couple of weeks previous to this terrible crime.

With much debates of placing akachan-post, in such case of leaving just-born child, people wished that there was a post in the crime sense. On the other hand, the first child placed in the post was three-years-old, thus the usage of the post was from the very beginning misused. Sadly to such two crimes, there have been many news about leaving children to death or still alive in various parts of Japan.

Today, there was another baby found dead in Sapporo, Hokkaido Pref. In comparison to the case of Tokyo, this Sapporo case was devastating. In the case of Tokyo, the baby was fortunate to be found alive before the garbage cars collected trash. However, in the case of Sapporo, the baby was found dead in a cooler who seems to be died soon after birth and weighted only 2 kilograms with navel still being attached.

How can people so easily dump innocent lives who have no choice of choosing their parents!?

Report from Mainichi Daily News and Asahi Evening Newspaper

http://http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/national/news/20070531p2a00m0na020000c.html

http://http://www.asahi.com/

In Japan, adults over 20 for both males and females have rights to vote.　For the past two weeks, almost all prefectures of Japan had voting days for a gubernatorial election and an election to choose the representative from each town/city. For me, April 8th was the day for voting, for some April 22nd was the day for voting. As I had been out of country for many years, it was my second time to vote. Like many countries, the proportion of young people aged between 20~30 have very low percentage of voting rates in Japan. However, I asked five friends that are ages either 23 or 24, finding out that only one person did not vote. Overall, the News says that although only about 37% of people voted by 5.00p.m.in Tokyo it was an increase over 4% since last time.

I though have to admit that it was rather annoying for the past weeks for the applicants’ cars goring all over my town, asking for everyone to vote since 8.00a.m. ~ 8.00p.m.every single day. It was even 8.00a.m.on Saturday morning the cars going around. It is because unlike the U.S., the time for Champaign is very limited. I mean how can I choose the one to vote if I know the person only from the Newspaper and TV during the Champaign that was less than two weeks? I live in the Prefecture next to Tokyo, so if you watch TV or even Newspaper, there are only the topics for Tokyo, but not much for the Prefecture that I live in. The only helpful information for the candidates was on the Newspaper two days before the voting day. If I had rights to vote for Tokyo governor, (which I could not) it was very easy. The candidates have been on TV a lot, discussing what their manifests are and what they are emphasizing on their Champaign. I wish I had rights to vote for Tokyo governor, because it is the center of Japan; I work there and so my brother.

On the day of voting, my father who usually goes to bed at 9.30p.m.stayed passed 11.00p.m.to find out who won from my area.　I found it rather funny, but he was very excited to find out who won from my town. It was who he voted and also all my family members voted. It was very tight election, but I was glad that our town representative is someone new who is willing to make change, unlike the former representative who did nothing.

Two days later, I found out that my town’s voting rate was one of the highest voting rates in the Prefecture. The attachment is the post card that was sent before the election, which was used as identification for the day of voting.

We hereby invite you to take part in the first International Metroblogging Streetart Contest.

Streetart is a fancy name for Graffiti. I’ve never seen any Graffiti in Tokyo either, but hey, we like challenges.

Thanks to till in Berlin for this.

In his words, here is how it works:

Metroblogging means global, which implies that all submissions of participating cities will first run against each other “locally” and then the top compete on a global level to find out where’s the hottest spot for streetart in the world.

To participate, follow those steps:

1) We setup a flickr pool - metroblogging streetart
http://www.flickr.com/groups/metrobloggingstreetart/

Feel free to join.

Each one of your submission should make it in the pool. If you don’t have/like Flickr - feel free to email them in to tokyometblog’at’yahoo’dot’com - I’ll post them for you. In this case, let me know whom to give credit to (photographer and streetartist).

2) The contest runs for two weeks. Then a voting process will start to find a city’s Top 3 streetart pieces.

3) After the local heros are chosen, we run another global contest to crown king of all. Top of the world, Master of the Universe - you know the deal! The Top 3 from each city will enter this contest. Watch this blog for more information.

Tags: Tokyo, streetart, contest

This is a call for readers to send in any other Urban Legends they have heard about Tokyo or Japan in general. Following on from Mari’s post, we are looking to uncover and investigate any other urban myths. Use SUGGEST A STORY or just add a comment here.

Meanwhile, Metroblogging LA’s Urban Legend series continues with Gang Rituals, Frozen Walt Disney - I’ve heard that one before, and Human Sacrifices.

I enjoyed to read this LA’s post “What is your favorite Los Angeles legend?”

I will pick the urban legends of Tokyo
The legend of Wraith in Tokyo : This is the most famous Tokyo legend;people still don’t touch Tairano Masakado’s grave.

This is a funny one,Touch the delivery company trade mark. If you touch the trade mark of Sagawa delivery company, you will have some fortune. The funny part is trade mark is a traditional Japanese postman and what you need to touch is his traditional underwear!

And this “kuchisake Onna” is the urban legend of Japan, not only in Tokyo. The interesting part is that it went to Korea.