喜楽 kiraku: gaspanic at the disco

by rameniac | 29 Nov 2006

For reasons best left unfathomed, I found myself sitting in an empty theater in Kumamoto city a few days ago, watching a Japanese-subtitled screening of Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. My date - I guess she has a penchant for hacked limbs and kimochi-warui western movies - kept squealing and half-covering her eyes in mock-shock-I-don’t-know-what. “Hey, you wanted to see this,” I remember thinking. I then remember jonesing for a zippy bowl of Kiraku ramen, some 500 miles away in Tokyo, when grandma Hewitt began stewing the night’s teenager and the evil sheriff admonished her: “Needs more flavor, mama.”

For an order of Kiraku ramen certainly does not, not when the signature ingredient in an otherwise austere and rather ascetic bowl of noodles is fried scallions. Kiraku, located on a nondescript sidestreet in Tokyo’s glamorous Shibuya district, is an island of tranquility in a swirling sea of hyper-fashioned gals. Done plate-digging at the eight-story Tower Records? Tired at Tokyu Hands? Pop into Kiraku and have yourself a most excellent meal in a room filled with tacky formica furniture and unflattering fluorescent light.

Kiraku’s ramen is traditional style chuka men or “Chinese noodles” kicked up a notch - no frills but needing none. The soup is oily in a good way (without being too greasy, it serves its function and traps the heat). The egg-based noodles are thick, yellow, and square-cut, but have a lot of spring to them and a very al dente sort of tooth.

The difference makers, though, are the trademark fried scallions, which lace Kiraku’s broth like bubbles in a glass of ginger ale. As a garnish, fried scallions are surprisingly uncommon; they have roots in Chinese noodling but don’t often appear in Japanese recipes, perhaps because of their unmistakable, hard-to-tame flavor. Kiraku somehow manages to integrate them into the very essence of its soup, turning an otherwise decent bowl of shoyu ramen into something slightly unusual but truly enjoyable. Onion flavor permeates the ramen, burnishing the only-slightly-above-average toppings with a tint of muskiness and making them truly scarfable: liberal portion of bean sprouts, which I’m typically not a huge fan of, the overboiled egg and the de rigeur chashu.

Just somebody please hire the place an interior decorator and tell the intimidating old guy at the cash register to smile.

decent shoyu broth made excellent by the addition of fried scallions. heavy on the oil slick.	9.5
thick and yellow egg noodles, knife cut, with excellent springiness	9
moyashi bean sprout overdose which i typically am not too fond of, but the distinct onion flavor made it very palatable. chashu was only a little fatty, above average but seasoned nicely.	7
yet to try the sides. chuka men was enough for a reasonably-sized meal without token gyoza.	NA
bad formica furniture redolent of bottom-end chinese restaurants. i suppose you could say that adds to the charm. couple that with garish fluorescent lighting and i heartily disagree.	0
an old style shop with quality chukamen, in the heart of tokyo's trendiest district. a couple of points for that.	2
2-17-6 Dougenzaka Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 03-3461-2032 11:30am -8:30pm (closed wed)	25.5