Hakata Ippudo Ramen - A Ramen Lover's Paradise <3 (Fukuoka Part 2)

If you've been following my blog you would remember me mentioning about a great ramen place in Fukuoka. Well...Ramen Lovers, this is it! This entry is all about that great ramen place I've been talking about ^_^

When we arrived in Fukuoka we didn't know where to eat. So Reid rang his friend and asked for suggestions of where was the best place to eat in the Tenjin area and she recommended that we go to Ippudo. Ippudo is located in Tenjin near KFC and Mont Blanc :p right across from the Iwataya department store. Just ask around when in Tenjin. Everyone knows where it is.

Ippudo in Tenjin, Fukuoka

It's a small place with one counter seating area and about maybe 4-5 rows of long tables and benches. The place gets really busy during peak times so be prepared to wait in line for a table and to share tables with other people. But trust me, it's worth it!! Ippudo is the best ramen place I've ever been to so far! The ramen here is to die for! I'm already drooling and dreaming of the day that I'll get to have a bite of their exquisite ramen. There aren't any branches here in Okinawa *cries*. However there are branches throughout Japan like Tokyo and Osaka.

Once seated this is the set-up you will see at your table

On the far left you can see a container with goma (sesame seeds) in it and you can use it to grind the goma. I love it in my ramen. Then you have your sauces. Towards the left are two jars. One is filled with pickled veggies and the other with bean sprouts marinated with spicy hot oil and sesame. It is soooooo good!! I can practically eat the whole jar :p

Deb Deb trying to decide which ramen to order
There are only 3 types of ramen to choose from.

I ended up ordering the Shiromaru Classic

The Shiromaru Classic

Tonkotsu base ramen is what Fukuoka is known for. Apart from that they have their own type of ramen noodles. I like these noodles better. They are much thinner than the other ramen noodles that I'm used to. Oiishi!!! =^_^=

Reid ordered the Ippudo Karaka-men

Ippudo Karaka-men

The next one is the third choice of ramen - The Akamaru Modern

You see the red/brown little ball in the middle of the ramen bowl? Well Reid thought it was umeboshi (pickled plum) and told me not to get it because I don't like it. And as you can see from this menu it is rather ambiguous and does not mention if it is umeboshi or not :p Oh and I later (back in Okinawa) learned that that little red sticker meant that this dish was the most popular one. I did observe people ordering more red ramen bowls :p

Aaaah...it was sooooooo delicious the ramen!!! As Reid always says, "It was scrumptious!!" Anyways, we loved the ramen soooo much that we decided to come back the next day for dinner again!!! LOL Yeap, it was THAT good!! Hey after all Ippudo is owned by the King of Ramen himself - Shigemi Kawahara and Fukuoka was the birthplace of Ippudo ^_~

The next night I ordered the Karaka-men instead and the Karaka-men actually comes with a side like this. It's a slice of pork, half a boiled egg, rice and a sheet of nori. Sigh...sooooooooo good. Love love love it!

We also ordered gyoza!! YUMMMMM I LOVE the Hakata gyozas though because the size is perfect!! Bite-size!! So it's really easy to eat

The story behind the Hakata bite-size dumplings

Fukuoka is also well-known for mentaiko. Mentaiko (明太子) is the marinated roe of pollock. So I thought since we're here in Fukuoka why not try the things that it's known for apart from Ramen ^_^

So we ordered this Mentaiko Rice. Mentaiko is the red stuff in the middle

Reid and I didn't like it though. It was salty and tasted 'fishy' to me :p Hey at least I tried it! :p

Oh and ONLY after we made all our orders I found a detailed English menu that describes and explains in detail the story behind each and every dish sold at Ippudo...

Well you remember Reid thinking that the red ball in the middle of the ramen ball being umeboshi? Well it wasn't!! Fail!! Epic Fail!!! LOL It is actually umami-dama ("flavor savor ball") after reading the detailed info. But I already ordered my ramen!! Now that I knew it wasn't what I thought it was, I was DETERMINED to try it!!

And yes you guessed it, we went to Ippudo AGAIN!!!

Akamaru Modern ^_^

Oh and this was the "umeboshi" hahaha - Umami-dama ('flavor savor ball')

Reid and I are nuts about this place. we ended up going to Ippudo a total of 3 times during our short 4 day trip to Fukuoka. It was just THAT good! Oh and I also bought take home souvenir packs of those ramen noodles. They come in a small box with the uncooked ramen noodles and packets of soup mix. It still tasted AWESOME!! Of course not as good as when you eat it there though. Plus the take home pack is a little complicated to make @_@ I gave some of the take home packs to Akane as well and she loved it too and wanted to visit a Ippudo branch when she went on a trip to Tokyo!

If you LOVE ramen, I definitely recommend you to try Ippudo if you ever get the opportunity to. Oh and good news for those living in the United States. There is an Ippudo branch there. Yeap you heard me right. It's the first international branch that they have so you don't have to fly all the way to Japan just to try it *wink* - you'll just have to fly to NEW YORK! :p that is if you aren't from there hehe.

I don't know if the New York branch is as good as the ones in Japan though. But hey if you get the opportunity to try it or if you have already tried the one there, let me know about it! ^_^

A big warning though:

Once you've tried the Ippudo ramen

No other ramen will taste as good anymore *sigh*

For more information about Ippudo, check out their New York branch website:

.:: Ippudo New York ::.

Frozen Rape...

I was at the local supermarket San A the other day with my friend Akane. We were walking at the frozen food section when I spotted this...

FROZEN RAPE...
At first I thought I saw it wrongly and maybe it was meant to say frozen grape but when I got closer to it and picked it up, sure enough it said frozen rape. To me, it was the first time that I've heard of or seen of this before. So my initial reaction was that I thought it was pretty weird and wrong naming something frozen rape @_@ but at the same time thought it was pretty funny too.

I showed it to Akane and she was shocked. She was like "Why.....??? Why do they call it that???" She said it was called 菜の花, nanohana in Japanese and didn't know what it's called in English.

As you can see here in this pic, it just looks like frozen green veggies. Akane said that if they are left longer to grow, they bloom into yellow flowers. I did a bit of google and found out that it's actually rapeseed leaves. Rapeseed is also known as oilseed rape or canola. I know canola but didn't know that it was a variety of rapseseed until now (-_-)" The leaves and stems of the rapeseed are edible and is similar to bok choy. And I guess most of us know of it as 油菜 (yóu cài) in Chinese or yau choy in Cantonese.

Anyways calling this frozen rape sounds really strange and wrong...they should've called it frozen rapeseed leaves or something like that...

Well here you have - Frozen Rape brought to you by Uni Foods for your smile (^_~) If you didn't get that, look closely at the pic above :p

Mont Blanc Fukuoka - My Kinda Place ( Fukuoka Part 1)

If you remembered, I went on a trip to Fukuoka a few months back. Never got the chance to blog about it though so here I am now writing an entry about it :p

I loved Fukuoka. Lots of things to see, do, SHOP and of course EAT!!! I just wished that we had more time to explore Fukuoka though...maybe next time ^_^

On the first night that we were there, after having a great dinner at one of the best Ramen places I've ever been to (keep an eye out on my future entries, I'll definitely be posting an entry about this place. Ramen Lovers, you can not miss this post!! :p) we were just walking around Tenjin (the main area in Fukuoka, where all the shopping centers are *wink wink*) that we discovered this gem - Mont Blanc Fukuoka.

The entrance to Mont Blanc

Mont Blanc is a little bakery shop/cafe hidden in between a row of shops. I think it was next to KFC...Mont Blanc can easily be missed if not for it's bright little entrance. So make sure you keep an eye out when you're next in Tenjin for the MB insignia on the glass door for Mont Blanc.

Deb Deb getting excited looking at all the yummy goodies and having a dilemma because she doesn't know which one to choose!!! She actually secretly wishes that she could have a bite of each and every single one of those goodies :p

They have a great selection for you to choose from

There are tables and chairs and they serve hot and cold drinks too so you can eat-in or take your treat home ^_^ The seating area is really small with only 4-6 small tables and can get busy. Definitely not a place to go to with a big group of people. Groups of 4 are alright but anything more can get really crowded and you may not be able to find any tables or seats available.

Attention to detail: The ice cube is spherical ^_^

I really like the place though, small and cozy - a great place to just hide from all the hustle and bustle of the city life and just relax and chill with a nice hot cup of tea and a slice of cake/pastry ^_^

My tea set. You get a nice little set-up when you order tea

I don't really like drinking coffee but absolutely love tea. I definitely recommend ordering their tea. This tea was soooo good. Perhaps one of the best I've had. Been trying to look for the same brand but have not succeed. They sold boxes of the tea bags but I didn't buy any. I thought that I could find it at the store...regret now...

Reid ordered a coffee instead. He said it was good too

I like these brown sugar cubes too. Didn't know the brand. If not I'd definitely be buying it.

Reid's Banana Cheesecake
Sooooooooo goooooooooooood!!!

I settled for this Strawberry Cake ^_^

Mmmm...Oishii~~~~!!! \(^o^)/

We loved this place sooo much that we went back to Mont Blanc again the next night ^_^ I could go there all the time! Wished we had a Mont Blanc here in Okinawa!

This time I got the Roll cake - yummy yummy

Reid got the Mont Blanc (the store is named after this dessert so we had to try it. After all wouldn't that be their specialty? ^_^) It was pretty good.

Oh and Reid also ordered this. I don't remember what it was called. It doesn't look very appetizing but it's actually really really good!!! It's kinda like bread...it's served warm...I'm drooling just thinking about it. Yum yum ^_^

Good Ballerina Gone Bad

I did a shoot a few months ago with Jyllian (Photographer) and finally got my cd from her during the weekend. I really enjoyed working on this shoot. It is probably one of the most fun shoots I've ever done.

The Concept:
Jyllian came to me with this concept that she had - "Good Ballerina Gone Bad". She wanted to capture a dreamy, organic, whimsical feeling through the images. Which would be the good ballerina. This concept was shot in the morning time for natural light. The good ballerina concept is then contrast with an edgy ballerina look which is dark and mysterious. This would be the bad ballerina. This concept was shot at night.

The Shoot:
We shot this all in one day. I did my own hair and make-up for both sessions. Both Jyll and I worked together leading towards the shoot on wardrobe. Since the first part of the shoot was to be shot in the morning in natural light outdoors, the weather was paramount. We were really worried about the weather. But it turned out great! ^_^

The Good Ballerina Concept:
We met early in the morning and headed off to our first location. It was just a little piece of land covered in tall grass by the side of the road. People who were driving were stopping and trying to catch a glimpse. Must've been weird seeing someone dressed in a white tutu dancing about amongst the grass LOL.

I look so serious here haha

Different color version ^_^

After shooting at this location for sometime, we headed off to our second location at Nakagusuku Castle for the rest of our shoot.

Each image reminded me of a dream as I would frolic through the grassy fields. I was in another world...all dreamy...embracing nature, my surroundings and my character...

We tried the 'blow the dandelion into the wind' concept that you always see in photos and movies LOL gosh it is much harder to capture than they make it. They always make it look sooo easy...but we tried for sometime...didn't really work haha

It was so hard standing on this tree...it was sooo slippery and I kept slipping down.

We finished shooting the first session by the afternoon and I headed home to rest and get ready for the second session in the evening.

The Bad Ballerina Concept:
I went over to Jyll's house to shoot the second session. We started off in her living room.

Black & White version

After that we headed outside her house to a back street by her house and finished the rest of the shoot there on the street.

I love this shot. It's so cool! The light is actually coming from the headlights of a passing car.

Jyll and I both agreed that it brought back memories of when we were young wanting to be ballerinas. I definitely enjoyed playing one for the day! ^_^

For more info on Jyllian and her work check out her website:

..:: Jyllian's Website ::..