[The following post is from the archives of my In Search Of Incredible blog, originally published on 7 May 2016]

 

12 October 2015, Monday

Today, we have quite a few activities planned. But first, we will be heading out for breakfast. The night before, my friend was craving to have some good ramen. Being ever resourceful, my friend went on the Internet and found out that the Ichiran outlet at Shinjuku opens 24 hours, so we decided to have ramen for breakfast today!

The Ichiran Shinjuku Station Central East Exit outlet is located at Peace Building, 3-34-11 Shinjuku Shinjuku-ku Tokyo-to 160-0022. According to the website, it is a 3-minute walk from JR Shinjuku Station (Higashi exit). There is another outlet nearby at the Kabukicho area. We were kind of surprised that there wasn’t any queue, even though it was still only 7:40am when we arrived.

We took the stairs down to the basement and were greeted by the usual vending machine that took your orders. We didn’t have any difficulties placing our orders because the vending machine buttons were illustrated with photos of the items and each button came with an English description. In fact, they only served one type of ramen – the classic Tonkotsu ramen, which is an original recipe from the 60s, so there is no chance for any confusion.

A bowl of Ichiran ramen costs 790 yen (approx. S$10), so it is actually cheaper than Singapore! You can order other toppings like half-boiled salted egg (120 yen), extra sliced pork (180 yen for 3 slices), extra noodles (130 yen) and even extra green onion (120 yen). After punching in our orders and making payment in cash, we received our tickets and proceeded to get seats.

Again, there are no staff members to usher you to your seat. We consulted a switchboard near the entrance, which showed three rows of numbered seats, each with a corresponding light bulb that was either green or red. There were some that we not lighted up, so we assumed that they were faulty or unavailable. Logically, we chose the non-red seats.

The dining area is one long counter with fixed round stools, where each seat is separated from the next by a wooden compartment that can be retracted halfway if you wish to see and talk to your friend sitting next to you. Otherwise, the Japanese have no qualms about eating alone in silence and it is designed with this in mind. Just eat, and get out of there in the shortest time possible. No fuss, all practical.

Placed on the counter top in front of you are a pen and a form, where you will indicate your preference for the ramen that is about to be prepared. You get to choose the flavor strength, richness, texture of the noodles, spice level, and whether you prefer it with garlic, green onion or sliced pork. The instructions are all in English, so you can tell that Ichiran is really well catered to tourists.

Minutes after submitting the form, my order arrived. A mysterious staff member slid a small plate with the egg and a wet tissue onto the counter top and closed the blinds. Shortly after, the blinds came up and someone slid my bowl of ramen in. Throughout the process, you don’t get to see him/her. It was quite a novel experience. The egg was half-boiled to perfection and the broth was rich and the noodles firm. It was really quite yummy, definitely recommended!

Having our bellies filled, we proceeded to our real first activity of the day, which was a Japanese cooking class. My friend had wanted to do something different for this trip and a cooking class certainly fitted the bill. From Shinjuku, we took a train to Ebisu station, where we were to change a train to Hiroo to meet our teacher at 10am. As we were still early, we popped into a café at Ebisu for a coffee before heading to Hiroo.

Our teacher, or rather, host, is called Yuka, and she is a friendly and pleasant lady. As we gathered at the exit of the train station, we found out that there were four other students joining the class – Brandt, a Chinese man from Canada; a mother and daughter pair originally from New York but are now residing in Florida; and another American lady who has been working in Tokyo for the past year, and she is the friend of the aforementioned mother. As we walked to Yuka’s apartment, about 10 minutes away, Yuka took turns to talk to us and get to know us better.

Yuka’s apartment was on the ground floor and it looked quite posh. We sat around a large dining table, which was beside the open kitchen, where all the utensils and ingredients were laid out.

As we milled around while waiting for Yuka to be ready, I saw a 2015 TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence being proudly displayed inside a cabinet. It was awarded to Cooking School Yuka Mazda for 5-star ratings awarded by guests on TripAdvisor. My friend had found Yuka after doing some research online and decided to enrol for her class after the positive reviews. I also saw a Taylor Swift guitar pick on the table, placed below the laminate cover. Yuka told us that Taylor Swift had attended her cooking class when she visited Tokyo the last time, and she left the guitar pick as a souvenir. Till now, we still cannot verify if this is true, but it is unlikely that Yuka would make things up, so Yuka must be somewhat good if Taylor Swift herself decided to enrol in her class!

For the class, we would be cooking our own lunch, comprising beef rice bowl, gyoza and miso soup. As Yuka conducted the lesson (in English), she assigned tasks to each one of us so that we all got hands on experience. Some chopped leeks and washed the rice, while I grated the ginger and garlic, before I was tasked to whisk the beef and sliced leeks with the sauces for the gyoza fillings.

Yuka then taught us how to wrap the gyoza. Using the same fillings and skin, we wrapped the gyoza into two shapes – the “expensive” one and the “cheap” one. Actually there is no difference between the two – only the shape is different. We also used a weighing scale to measure the weight of each gyoza so that they all have the same weight.

The “expensive” one is shaped more like a fan and it is flatter. You cook it by laying it flat on the pan, and the individual pieces are not supposed to touch each other. Because it is laid flat, there is a larger surface area in contact with the pan, so it is crispier. And because it takes up a larger area on the pan, you can only cook fewer pieces at one time, hence it is more “expensive” as it takes more effort to cook it. So it is more a matter of the quantity rather than quality, but like I said, it is crispier, so that plays a part too.

On the other hand, the “cheaper” gyoza is shaped more like a gold ingot (but you will need to curve the edges slightly) and you place five pieces back to back when cooking them, instead of laying them flat and not touching each other like the “expensive” one. As only the base comes in contact with the pan, a smaller area gets fried and hence, it is less crispy than the expensive one. These are the ones you get when you eat at Ajisen Ramen and most other restaurants in Singapore.

To cook the gyozas, you’ll need to add some oil to the pan, and wet each gyoza before adding a shallow layer of water to the pan. You will then cover the pan with a lid so that the gyozas can be cooked by the steam when the water reaches boiling point. After the water has boiled, do not remove the lid immediately. You will need to keep the lid covered for another 1.5 minutes so that the fillings inside the gyozas can be thoroughly cooked. After that, lower the fire and wait for the water to evaporate fully from the pan. Once done, the gyozas are now ready!

The underside of the gyozas should be golden brown and crispy, because it comes in contact with the pan and the cooking oil. The other side is steamed and it thus, it retains the original gyoza skin colour and it is moist. From the lesson, I learnt that only one side of the gyoza is crispy, and when restaurants serve the dish, they flip the gyozas over so that you only see the crispy side. Bet you didn’t know that!

There were enough gyozas to go around and we each cooked our own portion. I must say that they tasted really good! Maybe it is because we prepared them ourselves.

For the beef bowl, Yuka used premium wagyu beef from Japan. Each packet of wagyu beef is packed and stickered with a serial number, so you know you are getting the real deal. For the broth, we used bonito flakes to boil with water so it was really flavourful.

For the rice, Yuka used short-grain rice and she cooked it with a pot instead of a rice cooker, which definitely requires more skill. She got one of the American ladies to wash the rice for three times to remove the impurities, before placing the rice grains in the pot together with water. She then used a timer to ensure that the rice was cooked to the precise timing so that it would turn out perfect.

The beef rice bowl was very, very good, unlike any I have eaten before. Besides commercial fast food chains like Yoshinoya, there are not many places selling beef bowl rice, so I have not had much chance to try the dish actually. But our (or rather, Yuka’s) beef bowl rice was totally on another level. Yums!

Yuka also prepared white miso soup for us. She used a miso paste for the soup and she let us try two types of pastes. We all preferred the white miso, so we went for it. It was unlike the normal miso soup, and it tasted sweeter. Very nice.

To end off the meal, Yuka made us a matcha drink to aid in digestion. She added water to the matcha powder and used a brush to stir it. Apparently, this is the traditional way. It tasted great, as usual.

It was a very informative and practical lesson and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Yuka spoke good English and she was very funny and friendly. We all got to perform different tasks and had a chance to do some hands on cooking, which was really fun. Even though it was quite pricey (8,100 yen inclusive of 8% VAT, which is approx. S$105), I would say it was worth it because the meal itself would have cost at least S$35 in a restaurant outside. The whole class took about three hours, so it was time well spent.

For more information, you can visit Yuka’s website. She also has classes for sushi (8,800 yen + VAT), teriyaki (8,000 yen + VAT) and tempura (8,000 yen + VAT).

After the cooking class, we had some time to spare before our next activity, which was to visit the Ikebukuro Safety Learning Centre, which is co-located with the Ikebukuro Fire Station, where there was an earthquake simulator and free guided tour by the Tokyo Fire Department. Earlier at Hiroo station exit, my friend had spotted a signboard for a library, and wanted to visit it, so we went searching for it. Initially, we couldn’t find the library because there were no further signboards other than the first one. We came across a toy museum instead and popped in for a quick look. As we were about to give up searching for the library, my friend finally spotted it and we went inside.

It was quite old and it reminded me of a university library, not unlike one of those at NTU. The books were all in Japanese and the library was filled with people busy doing research and reading newspapers. I can safely say that we were the only tourists there. We spent about half an hour in there before realising that we were going to be late for the guided tour, which was to start at 3pm. We then hurried to the train station and took a train to Ikebukuro, before running to the fire station, located about five minutes away.

We were supposed to meet my friend’s cousin L’s fiancée, XM, at the fire station. They are a Singaporean couple living and working in Tokyo. However, when we arrived at 3:20pm, XM was nowhere to be seen. My friend also did not have L or XM’s phone number so there was no means of contacting either of them besides going online to Facebook, which required a data connection. The staff informed us that XM had left about five minutes before we arrived. So we decided to proceed with the tour on our own without XM, and find a way to contact her later.

As we were late, we missed the first part of the tour. When we joined the group, the guide was explaining about common fire hazards in the household. The guide was a former firefighter and old-timer, and he conducted the tour entirely in Japanese. Even though we could not understand a word, we could mostly make out his message through his body language and gestures.

The group comprised of about 25 people, all locals, and there were parents with young children and old couples as well. You could see that the Japanese took the threat of earthquakes and fire safety seriously and they were concentrating fully on the lesson. Not surprising, considering that Japan has one of the highest occurrences of earthquakes in the world and Tokyo is one dense metropolitan with tall buildings all around. Earthquakes don’t kill people – falling buildings and fires do.

After the explanation about common fire hazards in the kitchen, we moved on to a practical session on using a fire extinguisher. Everyone had a chance to operate the fire extinguisher, which sprayed water, to put out a “fire” that appeared on a screen.

The next segment of the tour focused on escaping from a building that had already caught fire and was engulfed with smoke. After watching a short illustrated video, we had another practical session, where groups of five entered a chamber/mini-maze with smoke and we had to make our way out of the chamber in the shortest time possible.

The last part of the tour was the most exciting because it was an earthquake simulator. In groups of about five or six, we took turns to go on the simulator. It was basically a platform with a dining table and chairs on it, and a large video screen acted as a typical living room backdrop.

When the “earthquake” struck, the platform started to rock and we all had to crouch under the table as soon as possible and keep all parts of our bodies under the table so as not to get hit by any falling objects such as bookshelves or lights. As part of the drill, we also had to tuck in our heads close to our bodies and use our hands to cover our heads if possible.

We got to experience a 6.0 and 7.0 magnitude earthquake. Even though it lasted for less than a minute, it was really quite a scary experience and I felt dizzy for a short while afterwards. Certainly hope I won’t ever be caught in a real earthquake situation. That is why these drills are important, because it will be chaotic in real life and you won’t be able to think properly when it really happens. The earthquake simulator was definitely the highlight of the visit.

The whole tour lasted for 1 hour 45 minutes and by the time it ended at about 4:45pm, it was closing time. The staff ushered us out of the place politely and we made our way back to the main shopping area near the Ikebukuro train station.

My friend managed to contact L and arranged to meet them for dinner at 6pm. In the meantime, I spotted a HMV store and made a beeline for it immediately. I was yearning to get my hands on the new Janet album, Unbreakable, and I was glad that it was in stock. There was some random pop group having an autograph session in store, but I didn’t know who they were.

After that, we still had some time to spare. We came across a cat café and decided to check it out. The admission fee was 200 yen (+ tax) for 10 minutes, with additional charges if you exceed the timing. There were about 10 cats in there, and almost all of them were “choped”, or taken, by their human counterparts. The felines were all snoozing away happily and most of them were fat and chubby. Only one slightly slimmer, grey-coloured one was awake and in the mood to play with us.

At 6pm, we met up with L and XM at one of the many fare gates of Ikebukuro station. After Shinjuku, it is the busiest train station in the world, so it is nearly as massive as Shinjuku’s. L and XM brought us to a shopping centre to have some sushi at a cheap but good restaurant, but the queue was crazy, with an estimated waiting time of an hour, so we decided against it. They then brought us to a restaurant called Ganso instead, which served a noodle dish called Mentai Nikomi Tsukemen.

I have never tried tsukemen before, which is cold ramen that you eat after dipping it in a separate bowl of soup. According to the restaurant’s promotional materials, there are many ramen shops offering mentaiko as a topping option, but it is rare to find one that has mentaiko infused inside the soup. Mentaiko is a spicy cod roe originating from Hakata, Fukuoka. Apparently, the special mentaiko nikomi soup from Ganso “offers the richness of over ten vegetables combined with mentaiko creating a supreme umami”. “Umami” means “pleasant savoury taste”.

A bowl of tsukemen at Ganso costs 1,280 yen (approx. S$16) and it is the same price for a 100g, 200g and 300g portion of ramen. Of course, being a typical “kiasu” Singaporean, I chose the 300g portion. More value for money, why not, right?

Turns out the tsukemen was really quite good. The soup was tasty and flavourful, as promised. It was an interesting take on ramen, though I think I still prefer my ramen served warm and dipped in soup the traditional way.

After dinner, we went to L and XM’s apartment nearby for drinks. They had a housemate staying with them. Like most Japanese homes, it was quite small and basic due to land scarcity in the city. It was cosy and comfy, but I think to stay there for the long term may be a bit of a challenge for me. It was nice chatting with them as they shared their experiences living in Tokyo for the past four years.

After receiving their warm hospitality for an hour, we bade goodbye to L and XM and returned to our hotel in Shinjuku. It had been a day of good food and company for sure.