Sunday afternoon I went to Ebisu with Yuko to pick up two huge bags of comics that my friend Charlie donated to me (he’s moving and has to get rid of a lot of stuff), and we took the opportunity to hang around Ebisu for a bit before meeting up with him. I’d always heard that Ebisu had quite a few really good ramen shops, and wanted to visit one, but had no idea where to go. Yuko suggested with check with the police, which I thought was a ridiculous idea. Lo and behold, they came out with a list of all the ramen shops in the area, with the most popular ones underlined in red. This lead us to Kazuki, which was absolutely delicious. I had a shouyu ramen (which is my favorite kind, and what they also recommended), and can honestly say that it almost beat my current favorite, Komen in Ikebukuro (be warned, all Komen shops are not created equal, there are a few in Tokyo and none have exactly the same taste as the one in Ikebukuro).
I got an email tonight from Charlie saying he had some more comics for me, which means I have a good excuse to head back to Ebisu and try another ramen shop (although I’m really tempted to just go to Kazuki again).
BTW, have I ever mentioned how much I love ramen (this is a retorical question)? I actually went through withdrawal symptoms when I went back to Canada for a year in 2000. Need ramen. Always.