The Best Bowl of Noodles in the World

[Nate sez]: This is it. The hands down, absolute, no contest, by far best bowl of noodles. It's ugly. It's mean. The service is third class at best. You have to wait in a long, ever-present line before being sent down greased stairs to wait a little bit longer. Did you buy your ticket? Because you can't order at the counter asshole. Get your damn water yourself, and if you want some soda, get it from the vending machine. Beer? you ask. Buy a ticket, give them the ticket, and wait your turn you ungrateful, foul beast.

I had been in Tokyo only three days when I stumbled across this mammoth noodle discovery. I was fumbling around, trying to find a Capoeira studio located somewhere in the vague vicinity around Takadanobaba station, asking every convenience store clerk or willing listener where this building is, and having absolutely no luck. If you think a map would help, you are sorely mistaken. This is Toyko. Ben has a degree in geography, and always knows where he is, and he's helpless in Tokyo. Tired and frustrated, I decide to give up for the day, and vow to search there again... maybe even tomorrow. Little did I know why I had really been there that day.

Wandering back to the train station I would find a bowl of noodles that would alter the course of Ben et Nate history. On the first floor of a nondescript white building, about 6 American blocks west of Takadanobaba JR station, on the south side of the road, you will see a line of hungry, eager Japanese males under a bright yellow sign that you can't read. If you don't see a line, the shop is not open. You should also quickly check your pocket, because the noodle-dar that you brought along is no doubt overloading, and will momentarily explode in the awesome presence of the quintessential Asian noodle dive.

Welcome to Ramen Jiro.

The single greasiest, filthiest, most crowded noodle shop I've ever been in, and nobody gives a shit that you couldn't wipe all the porkfat off the floor with the strongest caustic available on the market. This bowl of noodles is just that good. As I look around and take in the sights and the sounds (mostly raucous slurping), the overwhelming fragrance in the room is a deep hue of soul wrenching pork stock. This is not a pretty bowl of noodles; it will taunt you, it will tease you, and after 5 minutes of eating the crap out of this thing it will somehow breed more noodles, more bean sprouts, more cabbage, more melty, fatty, juicy chunks of days-cooked pork, more chopped garlic, more soup, more...ramen. I notice that every single bowl that goes back on the counter has been completely demolished, perhaps only a bit of soup remaining. It becomes very clear to me that absolutely no one can leave there without finishing the whole thing. I'm not sure if it's law or tradition, or if that voice coming from my soup taunting me, daring me, ordering me to eat it all was the cause, but I also demolished my bowl in its entirety.

The soul of the soup is the richest pork stock you've ever encountered. It's like drinking velvet - only the really, really porky kind. A savory "tare" or paste/sauce is added to give the soup its secret soy based overtones and character. Garlic infused rendered pork fat is dumped in before the noodles hit the bowl. The Noodles - holy shit! I don't know where the hell they found these but they are thick, round, chewy, eggy, salty, firm, curly, and soft all at the same time. The whole thing is topped off with blanched bean sprouts and cabbage, raw chopped garlic, and a pile of crushed chili powder. As if there isn't enough food, they shove a pile of illegal-tender pork in there too. If you ever make it here for some strange reason, when they ask you what you want in your bowl, just say everything.

Did I mention it costs 650 Yen? That's like $5.35. This is also most likely the single best deal on a meal available in the entire city of Tokyo.

The Aftermath

As I stumble out of there drunk on pork and high on MSG, it occurs to me that I've only been in Japan for three days and as the first bite of soup and noodles hit my taste buds, I had already found what I was searching for: the best bowl of noodles in the world. It is also of Ben's opinion that this is a fact.

[Ben sez]: Reery, it's true.

What is truly shocking is that it stood up to everything else we encountered. Before we hopped on our plane to come back to the US, it was mandatory as serious noodle experts that we make sure, be 100% certain that the Ramen Jiro noodles from Takadanobaba in Tokyo are the best we could find anywhere. After hundreds of bowls and plates throughout Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, and Singapore, there was nothing even remotely close to the downright soul this bowl possessed.

It was one of those often sought (and impossible to predict) perfect meals. The magical coalescence of time, space, and pork work in mysterious ways, but when it strikes, you are grabbed by the heart and led through an unforgettable journey of taste-bending glory.

Ben et Nate's Noodle Countdown - #2 & 3

[Nate sez]: Now, we've eaten a lot of noodles. I'm not saying that we definitively, absolutely, and without a doubt found the best noodles in the world. However, I can assure you all that at the very least, these are some of the finest bowls of noodles in current existence. Last week we spoke of Bangkok Pad Thai slingers and laid-back Lao noodle dives serving some really killer broth. I'm dying as I write this because right now I'd kill for a bowl of each of this week's noodles.

Dizzamn.

Noodle #3 - Pork Dry Noodle in Taipei, Taiwan -located on Heping Ave. Next to some Chinese medicinal herb shop. Taipei was deserted when we arrived - the streets devoid of pedestrians, the storefronts gated and boarded up, it was Chinese New Year and the city had shut down. As we prowled the streets for long hours, we noticed a few noodle shops kept their doors open.

After hours of stumbling deliriously down the deserted streets, a waft of gingery/porky/shrimpy wontons entices me towards a completely nondescript off-white hole in the wall. We approach the service area in the front and do some pointing at other people's dishes, soon the noodle lady is gesturing for us to sit down and wait. 5 painfully long minutes later, she brings us a small bowl of noodles with saucy ground pork, green onions, and crushed peanuts. As if a killer bowl of noods isn't enough, it comes with a bowl of pork soup with shrimp/pork & ginger wontons. There are scores of noodle & wonton joints in Taipei, but none could so well articulate the depth of pork flavor, or so perfectly complement meat with ginger, or salt and MSG soups and sauces so perfectly to induce the "Oh fuck, that's just wrong - where's seconds?" reaction as this place. We of course were back there again, and she's got follow through. We ordered seconds this time because we were leaving for Bangkok the next day, and I have no idea when I'll next be in Taipei, but I will return one day to eat these noodles again.

Noodle #2 - Blue Awning Pho in Saigon, Vietnam - Located on De Tham between Co Bac and Co Giang.

[Ben sez]: We already wrote a whole entry about the wonders of pho and the other phenomenal soup offerings in Vietnam, so it stands to reason that our dedication to pho would lead us to find a bowl worthy of our top five. Having a vibrant Vietnamese community in the Twin Cities we'd already had a few bowls of pho before we even got to Southeast Asia, a couple of them really really good, so we hoped that somewhere we'd find a better bowl, just so that we'd know our trip was worth it.

This bowl of soup edged out any bowl of soup we've had in Minnesota for the official Ben et Nate stamp of Best Bowl of Pho. An amazing feat no doubt, next time we're back in Saigon we'll be sure to take the proprietor her commemorative plaque.

This bowl was built on an artfully crafted beef stock, with subtle spices mixed in (chinese five spice? anise? lsd? clove? I'm not quite sure) to take it to that next level of deliciousness. Throw in some sliced beef and bean sprouts cooked in the broth plus the plethora of Choose-Your-Own-Soup-Adventure fixings on the table (fish sauce, chili oil, sugar, various local greens) and it's a damn fine bowl of noodles. This shop was only open for breakfast, but it was good enough that we actually woke up on more than one occasion to get there before they closed at 11:30am. That should speak more for the quality of soup than any words I can say: I was willing to get out of bed before noon for this bowl of soup.


Next week we'll be back with our final installment of Ben et Nate's Best Bowl of Brothy Noodley Goodness. Which country will reign soupreme in the battle of the bowls?

Ben et Nate's Noodle Countdown - #4 & 5

[Ben sez]: We ate Asia. Ok, not all of it, but we ate a lot of it, and somewhere in there we were hoping to find the best bowl of noodles. The jury is still out on whether or not we found the best bowl of noodles on Earth (or even in Asia) but we're going to count down the top five delightfully delicious bowls of noodles from our trip over the next few blogs.

Noodle #5 - Pork noodle soup on the banks of the Mekong River in Vientiane, Laos - We rolled into Vientiane after 24 hours on a bus (19 of which they had the air-conditioning turned off for) and settled into our hotel. On our second night in town we wandered past a restaurant advertising their Duck Noodle Soup. We tried this, then we went back for breakfast the next day and tried the Pork Noodle Soup. The woman here was slinging some deeply porky broth - a balance of pork flavor, soy, fish sauce, and hints of garlic and ginger. Throw in a condiment selection of limes, fish sauce, and chilies and you've got the makings for a deliciously meaty bowl of soup with your choice of fresh egg noodles or rice noodles. Somewhat of a middle ground between Chinese and Vietnamese soups.

Noodle #4 - Pad Thai outside BTS Station Saphan Kwai - We spent a lot of time in Thailand - somewhere around a month in total. Invariably we were going to eat a little bit of Pad Thai. We would have eaten a lot of Pad Thai but the portions in Thailand are so reasonable (that means "small" for all the Americans out there) that you don't end up eating massive quantities of anything.

We tried probably twenty different Pad Thai street stands in Thailand and only on our last night in Bangkok before going to Cambodia did we stumble across a great man standing at a griddle dishing out large (Thai) portions of awesome Pad Thai for 25 baht (about 75 cents). This man embodies everything right about the street vendor system, he makes one dish - with optional shrimp for 10 baht more - and makes it really well. All of the Thai restaurants in the United States that are slinging huge plates of bland noodles should take some notes from this man, pare down their menus and learn how to do it right. He has his pre-mixed sauce in leftover Aquafina bottles which he pours over the noodles, tofu, and bean sprouts to create this quintessentially Thai dish.

I'm sure you're tired of hearing it, but it's all about balance, in the US Pad Thai always seems overly sweet, served with a wedge of lemon to make it even brighter. In Thailand they focus on a healthy amount of shrimp or fish sauce and tamarind paste to balance out that sweetness with some salty, sour, tangy goodness.

I haven't quite figured out why so much of the Pad Thai in Thailand is pink colored, but I heard that pink is in style this year, so I'm not concerned.

[Nate sez]: I think they mix the blood of virgins into the sauce, but that's just a rumor as to why it's so delicious.

This has been a succinct wrap-up of the first two of our top fives bowls of noodles in Asia. Nate's too busy "taking care of business" to blog right now but I'm sure he'll have some epic treatises about the top 3 bowls of noodles in the coming weeks to make up for it. Join us next week for the second installation of our continuing noodle countdown - Same Ben et Nate time, same Ben et Nate channel.

Noodle-Futures and other Night-Market Indicators

[nate sez] After a long week of pointing, and gesturing, and rudely gesturing towards other people's meals, we've managed to order some semblance of food in Taiwan. There is an abundance of Japanese, Korean, all styles of Chinese (Hunan, Sezchuan, Canton, Peking, etc.), and of course the local Taiwanese street grub.

Which is by far the best thing to eat around here and in frighteningly large supply at the Taipei Night Markets.

At first, entering any foreign street food market is nothing short of synapse searing confusion - the strange, delicious smells, the bizarre piles of god-knows-what, the lines, the people, the pushing, the foul smell of rotten Chinese tofu that people LOVE around here, and of course, more noodles than you can handle.

There is a startling lack of most things that we consider to be "Chinese" in the states. What we're used to is expensive banquet and special occasion food - and frankly, it costs about as much here as it does in the states to eat half of it, and it isn't necessarily much better if you know where to eat.

BUT - the street food scene is absolutely unmatched (although we haven't been to Bangkok yet) and so here are some of the highlights:

Noodles:

There are several distinct types of noodles, some stewed, some fresh, some egg, some rice, some in thick soup, some in thin soup, fried, griddled, wrapped, and tossed into salads. The most widely available noodles are the Beef Soup & Noodles, and the Dan Dan noodles. These are also our favorites. The Beef Soup & Noodles is really freaking straightforward. Good beef soup, good fresh egg noodles, a little bit of mustard greens/baby bok choy, and a dash of green onion. It's usually better with a hit of table chilies.

The Dan Dan Noodles over here are out of control. This is a dish of boiled egg noodles, a pile crushed sesame seeds, and some kind of amazing ground pork w/ bean paste and something concoction that goes on everything. It's not the traditional Dan Dan Noodles which are much more nutty tasting and thick - it's just really savory, a bit sweet, meaty as hell, and leaves you craving another bowl even though you couldn't stuff another one in.

Fruit:

One of the most common stands is the fruit stand - guavas, pineapple, pickled baby pears, massive Asian pears, apple-pears (seriously tastes like both with a pleasing texture of juicy styrofoam), strawberries (man they're good), and cherry tomatoes stuffed with prunes. They slice it, bag it, shove a few eating toothpicks in it, bag it again, and hand it to you for about $1.50 a fruit serving. While buying the fruit yourself is obviously cheaper, it's still a bargain. There's also fruit juice/smoothie stands and roasted/unroasted (black and white) sugar cane juice. All for like under a buck.

A word of caution - I located some deliciously ripe pink guavas at the Snake Alley night market and the lady poured on some brown looking powder onto my guavas. Turns out, the locals love to have overly salted, fermented prune drenched guavas. I nearly pissed my pants from the horror of discovering this on my first crack at fresh pink guavas (which has always been my favorite flavor of imported fruit nectar). I have since learned better. So next time you're in Taiwan at a night market and want some damn guavas, make sure they don't hit it with shit salt.

Fried Stuff:

They LOVE fried food (who doesn't?) and so of course there is a down right sick array of fried deliciasities. The best so far have been two things prepared the same way: bread-crumby battered assorted mushrooms and pounded chicken cutlets fried crisp and seasoned with Taiwanese pepper (which has that ubiquitous Taiwanese broad bean flavor) and some hot pepper powder. It's shockingly good. We'll leave it at that.

There's also 782 stands at every night market selling fried (and I guess boiled) stinky Chinese tofu. If you're ever here, you will be able to instantly identify it as the completely foreign, and wrong smelling odor.

Everything Else:

There's also bubble tea stands everywhere, oyster omelets, Taiwanese burrito-like objects, corn corn corn (boiled, roasted, salted, candied, over ice, over rice, on it's own, on the cob, in your dumplings, on your face, every-freaking-place-you-go...PS we have way better corn in the States), steak & pasta griddles with fried eggs on top, and more stinky steamed and fried tofu.

In most night markets, you can turn off the main drag to enter the "sketchy-as-fuck" food zone. All your entrails, fish heads, duck heads, steamed-yesterday & been-in-the-zone-all-day shrimp and crab, guts, snakes, wiggling turtles, and of course, the ever present god-knows-what. Seeing as this isn't japan, and all the fish heads look freezer burned, we look, gag at the smell, and proceed to find things that might not eat us once inside of our stomachs.

We're eating large and pounding the pavement hard in Taipei. Next week we're planning to scooter around the island. I'm sure we'll encounter some tasty (if not at least interesting) new regional cuisine to entertain you all with.

-Ben et Nate