Wednesday, June 1, 2011

ばんから - Bankara, Ikebukuro


ばんから角煮, Bankara Kakuni (Tonkotsu Shoyu), ¥980

 "Douzo, douzo. Iraishaimase."
   I thought that being a ramen chef could be a pretty interesting job - The people that do it are obviously well into their ramen, there is often a high-paced yet friendly atmosphere in the kitchen and they get to be creative. But after sitting at the counter directly across from the kitchen window at Bankara and watching the chef utter these words again and again, I'm not so sure. He didn't seem to be having fun and the scene was reminiscent of a cartoon character working away robotically as though he'd forgotten why he wanted to be a ramen chef in the first place.


    There are a few Bankaras around Tokyo and two in, what some say is the ramen capital of Japan, Ikebukuro itself. I made my way to the honten, the original store. It's actually a quite large store despite the fact that it's about 2 metres wide for the most part. It's just very long. And quite popular too as there was quite a big turnover and it remained full. One reason for this could be that people weren't interested in queuing up at neighbouring Mutekiya. (I'll get to it.)


  You'll need this...


  The ramen didn't take too long to come and looked as you would expect a bowl of tonkotsu shoyu to look except it was more of shoyu flavour with a little tonkotsu mixed in. 


    The bowl's a little busy...


    The overwhelmingly strong shoyu flavour which was most obvious in the chashu which tasted as though it had been soaking in a pot of soy sauce for days.


    I could only get this far with the broth as there was just too much abura floating on the surface and you have to draw the line somewhere when you're eating so much ramen.





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