Sapporo Ichiban, original flavor

Hola and bonjour, my dear readers. Today I present a ramen I consumed last Thursday that, once again, was impeded in the blogging process by Real Life. In this case, it was a trip to the post office during lunch to mail my brother's birthday present. (Hi Bob.) It's just been kinda pushed back since then. I get to blog now though because I'm waiting at the laundromat, where there aren't a thousand other things that need to get done.



"Ichiban" means, in Japanese, "number one." Since looking this up when I was eating it, I've come across this word again, in the name of a Japanese restaurant. I was then able to proclaim (to myself, in my head) "That restaurant's name translates to Number One." While I will most likely never eat there, I stand just a little taller in knowing what its name means. It makes me, dare I say it, the ichiban of knowing the word ichiban.



Look, there's actual Japanese writing on it. Unfortunately I can't read this. However, this makes it authentic. I have cred now. Nobody can accuse me of being American-centric. Hooray. I like covering my bases.

The setup here is remarkably similar to other ramen. It's a brick with a seasoning packet- only wrapped once, unlike some other ramen- that takes three minutes in boiling water to cook. It had a cost of $0.79, considerably higher than other ramen, but it has a mass of 3.5 ounces instead of the typical 3. (I know this because a few nights ago I used Top Ramen as an impromptu food scale balance thing. I needed 3 ounces of veggies.) I put some water in a bowl, microwaved the bowl for four minutes to make it nice and hot, put in the broken brick, and microwaved it for another four minutes. I was adventurous this time and drained it- this took some effort because my "bowl" is just a shallow, thin faux-Tupperware thing. I put on the lid, held it carefully- it was really hot!- walked a few rooms over to the sink, realized it was locked, balanced the bowl on a trash can, opened the door, and grabbed the ramen and went in before it closed behind me. It was tricky. You should've seen it. I then opened a corner a little and drained it slowly. It worked, for all the effort.

Back in my office, I stirred in the seasoning packet, took a whiff, and kinda recoiled. It smelled... not good. I didn't really know what to expect from "original" flavor- just something I'm not used to. Nevertheless, I dug in with my fork, and...

...it was excellent. Seriously, this is pretty much the best ramen I've had yet. I couldn't identify the flavor, so I looked it up, and Wikipedia claims it's soy sauce, which didn't seem far off, if at all. It's the pinnacle of salt and noodles, and by golly, it was delicious. Nice, strong, tasty taste. I don't really know what else to describe about it, just take my word for it. It's good stuff.

Final score: 4.75/5 (I'm like that annoying professor who refuses to give As. What if I come across something even better?)

As a general note, after the two ramen things I bought for lunch this week, I've pretty much exhausted all the fun options at the grocery store I'm used to going to. I like it because it's within walking/bike riding distance, and for some reason carrying groceries on the bus seems like more hassle than it's worth. My options are as follows: review alternative flavors of the same brands, move to udon (which honestly kinda scares me for reasons I can't properly expess,) suck it up and take the bus for a special ramen-grabbing trip and stock up, find another store, or get a car. You'll have to help me with that last one- got a car you want to donate to The Ramen Review? =D