Posted by rameniac at 12:48 PM | 19 Sep 2008
Finally, the time is nigh for the hugest, most photo-intensive pictorial this website has ever seen! Maybe you guys thought I had forgotten, but perhaps I was just saving this for the right occasion ^^. What better way to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Chikin Ramen and the birth of instant noodles than a walking tour through the Momofuku Ando Instant Ramen Museum? Oh yes.
Posted by rameniac at 05:42 PM | 30 Jul 2008
Every time I visit Tokyo, I make it a point to stop by the Shin-Yokohama Raumen Museum. A veritable mecca for ramen lovers (not to mention an unqualified triumph in marketing - when was the last time you visited a Ripley’s Believe it or Not?), the “raumen” hakubutsukan features, contrary to popular opinion, neither the best ramen in all of Japan nor the most entertainment value for your yen. As a museum, it’s certainly not the Tate Modern or the Louvre, comprised of little more than a gift shop and an ever-fickle spotlight on one of Japan’s regional ramen varietals. On last visit, it was all about Kumamoto, and the entire “exhibit” consisted of a few bowls under glass, a video loop, and some wall-sized posterboard mockups.
Posted by rameniac at 03:12 PM | 16 Apr 2008
Okay, this isn’t precisely ramen-related, but I figured it would appeal to a fair segment of the rameniac readership. After all, ramen, anime, and cosplay go together like beans, eggs, and blood pudding in an English breakfast. So last Saturday, I had the good fortune to attend the opening of Royal T in Culver City, Los Angeles. Touted as America’s first-ever “maid cafe,” Royal T featured an exhibit of superflat artwork from the likes of Takashi Murakami and Yoshitomo Nara and cosplay French maids making like it was Akihabara Electric Town during a Yodobashi Camera fire sale.
Posted by rameniac at 02:10 PM | 26 Mar 2008
When it comes to tonkotsu ramen, Kyushu is truly king. And a rameniac in southern Japan would do well to visit Canal City, a gloriously overwrought, crescent-shaped shopping mall designed by architect Jon Jerde to invoke the American west. I couldn’t even begin to imagine why. But though ramen lovers are not necessarily modernist architecture freaks, this Fukuoka landmark houses the Canal City Raumen Stadium, also known as “Raumen Stadium 2,” kid sibling to Yokohama’s famed Raumen Museum and home to an ever-rotating assortment of top-tier ramen shops.
Posted by rameniac at 05:32 PM | 03 Mar 2008
It should come as no surprise, to any close reader of this site, that I am completely enamored with not just Japan, but more specifically, southern Japan. Yes, the rameniac does play favorites, but it’d be pretty hard not to, not when historically speaking, the world’s best tonkotsu ramen is served at literally thousands of yatai food carts scattered across Fukuoka city’s Hakata district. What the taco truck is to Los Angeles, the yatai is to Hakata, and I wear my heart proudly on my sleeve when I say that I root for the Softbank Hawks and count among my favorite people on earth my tomodachi in Northern Kyushu, whose residents are often friendly to a fault and exude the warmth of oden simmering past two am on a wintry morning.
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