ippudo

We received the most amazing wedding gift last week… a ramen care package from our friends Derek and Naomi (whom you’ll remember from our trip to Japan last year!)  During one of my recent “famous” food tours to New York, we paid a visit to Ippudo and I fell in love with the magical food that is ramen.  Oh how I gushed and gushed about it.. here in the blog (post here) but also in person, on facebook, by wire, by train plane and automobile… I shouted it from the rooftops!  Ippudo ramen is MAGICAL.

Well, our wonderful friends Derek and Naomi heeded the call — they visited Ippudo in Yokohama where they now live, and gathered up a treasure chest of bounty to send to us as a gift to celebrate our wedding… I was completely floored when we opened the package.

Fresh ramen kits, a collection of ramen spoons, and a nifty head kerchief like everyone in Japan wears!  The red kerchief is the same one worn by Ippudo staff, and the owner of Ippudo in Yokohama gave it to Derek to give to me.  Their ichiban fan!  I may frame this thing..

Well a meal is best enjoyed with friends, and so we gathered up some special folks to share our bounty with.  Joe who was our travel partner in Japan when we went to visit Derek, and Kiran who is my best foodie buddy (new spin on the ubiquitous BFF) as well as my co-food-tour-organizer.. Kiran is also the person I fell in love with Ippudo alongside, so I could not possibly partake in this ramen love without him.  By the way, it’s purely coincidental that our dinner guests are both brown.  We like and appreciate both brown and non-brown people of either gender and any variety of sexual orientation equally.  Besides, we needed some skilled labor in the kitchen to help us out with the cooking:

Oh relax, I’m just kidding.  We fed them didn’t we??  Besides, look.. Kiran is clearly drinking on the job, what a bum.

So I gathered up some fixins that seemed ramen-worthy by my best guess… spinach leaves, enoki mushrooms, roast pork, scallions.. the ramen packet came with some pickled mustard greens and sesame seeds as well.  We puzzled over how to soft boil an egg properly, so this was an educational experience as well!  How do you think we did?

OURS

THEIRS
Ippudo’s “Akamaru Modern” ramen
tonkatsu noodle soup with pork belly chashu

And then, just because we are who we are:

Note the head-wear.  We had to look the part of course, otherwise how would people know what we’re doing?  More pics of our evening found here if you haven’t had enough of us yet Derek and Naomi, thank you so much for your wonderful gift and we miss you so much… we had a really fun evening of ramen goodness, and I can’t wait until we can all hang out together again.  Perhaps over a bowl of ramen!  But until then, I may be sad but you know what cures sadness?  RAMEN.  IT FIXES EVERYTHING.

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