Travelogue-Tokyo Day 1, Its a ramen kind of day

I got up this morning with the intention of going to Yokohama to the Cup noodle Museum.  Before I do that, I thought I would go to Ippudo in Ebisu.  I have heard alot of glowing reviews about this place in many ramen blogues.  They have branched out into many locations including Seoul and Hong Kong.  This location is the progeneator,the one that started it all. 

I didnt try their specialty.  Since I prefer miso ramen, I ordered the akamaru.  It contains miso and garlic oil with the thin round noodles.  I didnt get much of a whiff of the miso, it was very subtle.  There was a bit of chili pasted to give it a bit of nice heat.  The soup was very good.  Even better when you crush some extra garlic into it and let it blend with the soup's heat for a while.  I was very satisfied with this

I get to the museum around 1pm.  I am told the next available slot to make my own cup noodle was not until 4pm.  Three hours to go so I started to lookaround.  There was display of instant ramen and cup noodle history rpresented in the packaging.  There was a documentary but I skipped it.

I guess everyone comes to make their own cup noodle as evidenced by the long line and large groups of people.  Time slots are divieded up by the half hour from open to close, 10am-5pm. 

During the wait, I watched some of the other japanese-speaking peoploe making chicken ramen from scratch.  They wont let you do it unless you can speak the language.  So, I wont even bother to show the pics.  My number came up and I began by buying my cup at the vending machine for 300yen

Proceeding next to the tables, you can pretty up your cup with colored markers.  You could leave it plain too but at least wtie the dat3e on it because I dont think it nwill outlast a Twinkie

After your design is complete, you get to put in a brick of noodles into the cup.  You get to choose 4 of 12 toppings.  I put in egg, crab, corn, and green onion

You also get to choose from 4 soup bases.  There was tomato.  Im sure they had chicken.  I dont know what the other one was but I choose curry.  In hind sight, I could have made a c-cup if I substituted the egg and enion for cheese and chili pepper

Then its sealed for your protection.  And, shrink-wrapped for their protection

Watching the heat shrink wrap do its thing reminds me of Shrinky Dinks

Lastly, its time to bag and tag.  place into provided pouch then pump with air to cushion the valuable one-of-a-kind item

This gets the Rogue Dogue stamp of approval

I spent way more time in Yokohama than I had expected.  Firstly, there was the wait for my cup noodle.  Then it took a long time just to get back to the train station.  The Akaikutsu bus is an on/off conveyance that only goes in one direction.  The slowest parts was the middle third.  It was 5:30pm by the time I got to the station and the sun was beginning to set.  To cap off the day, I decided to have ramen for dinner.  I went to the Setagaya branch at the ramen street at Shinagawa.  I order my usual favorite there.  Its a very thick broth with wide thicker noodles.  I added the extra chopped onions.  The chasiu seemed larger and thicker than I remember.  I could do a curry theme but the museum for that, also in Yokohama, closed down many years ago.  BTW, there is the ramen musem at the Shin Yokohama train station.  This is a better sourced out food(ramen) court then the hackneyed Noodle Bazaar at this one.  There is another Cup Noodle Museum in Osaka that has been open for much longer