TOKYO NE #6. UNDFTD, BLAKE & KAZZ, ICHIRAN.
October 20, 2009

Time warp time. It’s been a minute since I left Tokyo but I thought I’d finish up the updates from the trip. I bumped into Blake from UNDFTD JP whilst strolling through Harajuku, and it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen the new UNDFTD Harajuku fitout, which was renovated a few months ago. Popped in to check out the décor.

New fitout looked great. Lots of wood panelling, and a lot more warmth to the space compared to the quite black/white/neutral tone that it was beforehand. Simple, but quite effective. I like the sliding door system for the changing room/stock system.

I met up with Blake and Kazz later up in the evening at the aforementioned adidas plants exhibition. We stopped for gyoza before heading out to Shin-Maru. It’s always fun catching up with these two as they have a pretty nonchalant view of the industry, and I check Blake's blog quite often, which makes for a lot of humorous conversation. Allegedly, Kazz’s ability to speak the English language seems to exponentially increase with the addition of ethanol into his bloodstream, so we decided to test that theory. I think we confirmed our hypothesis.

Sorry Fraser. This was the real reason we were late for the honeyee.com event.

Moving along - when Dave told me that he was going to take me to a pretty good tonkotsu ramen place, I just shrugged. Just in case you didn’t know, ramen is like the fast food of Japan. It’s cheap, fast, and people tend not to eat it unless they’re in a hurry. Then again, he didn’t tell me about ICHIRAN.

The entire place was a trip. For a start, being that it was located right across the street from the infamous “Seventh Heaven” in Roppongi and then up a dodgy lift, I thought Dave had inadvertently taken me into some kind of weird hentai peep show. You sit in individual crammed ‘cubicles’, separated by rather dodgy looking dividers and a vinyl seat, with a tissue box right behind you. Riiiight. As you sit there staring at this red curtain, a hand darts out from underneath it and grabs your ticket, and it’s not until they pass you the order form that it dawns upon you that this really is a legit ramen place. It’s generally normal tonkotsu (roast pork slices) ramen, but you can specify everything from the fat content, flavour intensity, spicyness, the amount of their ‘secret sauce’, to the “firmness” of the noodles. The result – perhaps the best bowl of tonkotsu ramen I’ve ever had in Japan, topping Jangara Ramen in Harajuku.

The view from above. Also recommended – the hard boiled egg. I’m not sure if I’m spoiling the spirit of the message by showing you the second picture – it’s a little message that you’re only supposed to see once you finish your entire bowl of ramen, something along the lines of “Thanks for going all out to finish this bowl of noodles”, or something to that effect. Or perhaps it really says “hey sucker, you just ate double your daily calorie intake, you stupid foreign guy!”. I dunno. A lot easier said than done though, especially if you chose the ‘double-spicy’ option like I did.

Thanks again for everything Dave.

Rip says hello. Still looking for the perfect 10?