Rendezvous With Ramen: Review # 2 Kuma-chan, Nagoya Ekimae, underground shopping district.

The waitress, already pretty high strung, ready to leap out at customers to take orders and dispense water, decided to freak out completely when I attempted to order Tamago topping (a simple boiled egg) and proceeded to yell "Nama tamago!!!!" to the chefs. And the complete horror of the guy sitting next to me,he rabidly changed seats."Nama tamago!!!!" = "Raw egg". I was feeling rather beat after a busy morning taking Ann to the doctor then daycare then rushing to Fushimi for a job interview. Some fun filled business English classes to flll out my days and pay for my ramen and camera lens addictions. So I didn't bother changing my order and I hoped that maybe, like at Yoshinoya when one orders "Nama tamago" it might come in a separate little bowl.

Nup.

Ooops. There's a raw egg in my soup. And it's all my fault.

Never mind. I made a noodley cave and buried it at the back of my bowl, banking on the hot broth poaching it slightly.

Anyway, the ramen that I ordered is called Paripari niniku ramen. Garlic flavoured broth with fantastically yummy cubes of baked charshu (roast pork) cooked in an oven 'til they're crunchy.

The palate was a pleasant mix of garlic, pork, miso, dried chillies, bean sprouts, and leek greens.
The noodles are hand made I think and they have a beautiful egg pasta smell to them. They're very soft, but perfect and don't fall apart in the soup. they're square cut noodles, yellower than most ramen out there. They have a special, unique flavour that I adore and crave from time to time, though I think this was only my third visit to Kuma-chan.

A man came in and ordered miso butter ramen, a much prettier arangement than my bowl with 2 flat 2 cm sqare dobs of butter floating on top. He stired them in with his chopsticks creating a golden slick of goodness accross the surface of the pale brown broth.

Left: Toukibi ramen (corn).
Right: Miso butter ramen.

Another man odered ramen with a smaller bowl of dipping soup, tsuke-men, such is often served cold in summer. I guess here they serve it cold all year as he explicitly asked for it to be served hot.

Tsuke-men at lower left. Tororo (sticky mountain potato) and soba noodles are

next to it. Top upper shelf displays gyoza on the left and curry ramen.

A young woman with glasses sat at the counter and ordered charshu-men roast pork with wakame, a large
pile of wet seaweed, vibrant green, that she mixed through.

Compared to last week's Ichiran episode, Kuma-chan is spacious. One bloke had his broadsheet unfolded, 2 women were reading books, elbow and leg room were not at a premium. That said, the place is not big. I counted 29 padded bar stools, 12 along walls, 10 around a central oblong cut piece of tree trunk, 7 along the counter adjoining the kitchen. There were also some neglected mangrove palms, I found myself wondering how they manage to photosynthesize so far underground.

The spicy garlic soup gets a 7/10. Their gyoza are quite oily and lacking in flavour, but a nice crunch to them, 5/10. The noodles are amazing, I've never tried anything like them elsewhere, 9.5/10.

Cost: Pari pari ninicu ramen: ¥760, gyoza ¥300. Accidental raw egg: ¥50 Total: ¥1110.

Very highly recommended.

Special thanks to a former student, Chikayasu Sato who first told me about Kuma-chan.

Getting there:

Click here to enlarge.

Basically the entrance is directly across the main road from the Nana-chan statue. But if you crossed there, you'd surely perish, squashed by myriad taxis and miss out on some really fantastic ramen. There is a fluro orange number 1 next to the entrance.

At the base of the stairs you'll be greeted by a large pole, walk to the right for about 3 meters, then turn left down the big hallway.

Marvel at the shiny and expensive samurai swords.
Wander in and buy me a lovely pair of metal samurai chopsticks
for ¥40,000 if you're feeling generous.