Without a doubt one of the reasons and motivations behind my trip, apart from wanting to take a break and see the world, is food. Having the chance to try out local dishes, taste new flavours, discover new things as well as see markets, ingredients and just how people are around food, is something I really love. It was a big reason behind my move to Japan, and I indulged aplenty while there, and now that I’m travelling around South East Asia it’s still one of the things that gets me really excited and hyped when I arrive somewhere.

I’ve been meaning to write about Japanese food in more detail, for well over 6 months now, but lazyness and life got in the way. I’ll get round to it eventually. Looking at my trip so far though, and considering I finished work at the beginning of June, my own little food oddisey started in Japan. With two weeks to kill before I left for China, a friend of mine came over for a holiday and we indulged in all manners of Japanese culinary delights, which was a great way to leave the country.

When I say delights that might be a bit of a strong word, considering that we actually went, for the best part of 2 weeks, on a ramen rampage, knocking up 8 different ramen sessions in the space of 13 days. If you keep in mind that the average Japanese person eats one ramen a week, and that ramen, especially good ramen, is hardly the healthiest of dishes, you might get an idea of how ‘full’ I was by the time I was ready to leave.

No regrets though, it was great to have someone with me who shared my enthusiasm about ramen, as it’s not something I’ve found most westerners to be fond of, especially compared to my Japanese friends who are all a lot more keen to go and get their ramen on. Of course such a ramen rampage had to involve a trip, or in this case 3, to Ramen Jiro, which is still in my opinion the finest ramen in Tokyo, full stop. The fact that it’s actually considered by locals and ramen afficionados as a totally unique ramen, which stands alone from the more traditional recipes, only makes it that more attractive and special to me. And while I love Jiro, I’d only ever been to two of the 20 or so branches around town. We remedied that by finding a couple of central branches, namely the Shinjuku and Ikebukuro ones, and discovering that while Jiro might be a chain of sorts, and the recipe fairly similar across them all, each branch does have its own appeal, its own unique twist on what is possibly the greasiest but tastiest broth and best men noodles I’ve ever had.

I was also taken by some Japanese friends to a few other spots around town, including one of the two Ramen Colloseums in town. Basically they’re places where 7 or 8 different ramen chef have restaurants side by side and compete with each other to offer the best ramen. What this really means though is that you can get to eat some less orthodox and more imaginative ramen, including in my case one where the broth was a combination of tonkotsu (a pork based broth, used by cooking bones and fat) and mushroom cream and served with the same pickled ginger as you get in all the normal gyudon spots (meat and rice bowl places). If memory serves me right this kind of ramen is from one of the northern provinces in Honshu, though I forget the name.

After that I was also taken to a little spot somewhere on the Inokashira line which offered a tsukemen (which is basically noodles and toppings separated from the broth, so you dip them - it’s generally a lot better for summer, when the heat of ramen can get a bit much) with a curry based broth. A nice surprise which turned out to be absolutely amazing - the broth a real pleasure, blending the taste and flavour or traditional Japanese curry, which tends to be mild but really flavoursome, with the more traditional soya and fish taste of certain kinds of shoyu ramen. While on paper it might seem like an odd combination, it works incredibly well. To top it off, the noodles were of the home made variety, a little thicker and translucent than what you would normally get, closer to the kind of noodles you get in Vietnamese pho, and the meat was delicious, having been chargrilled and served in thick slices, again something you don’t always see, but which for me makes all the difference.

We managed to knock up a few more places in our two weeks, including a couple of more famous joints in town which left me a bit dissapointed. To me what makes certain kinds of Japanese ramen truly amazing and unbeatable is not only when they use a certain kind of broth, generally based on a popular one but somehow changed, but also home made noodles. This implies they’ll be different to the standard instant noodle types you normally get. The other key thing is generous slices of meat and toppings, again something you don’t always see as the norm is for paper thin slices. Some people like it the traditional way, but I’ve realised that for me it’s very much all about those places which change it and make it a lot more about a true culinary experience rather than a popular dish eaten by most people around the country.

Of course a two week eating feast in Japan wouldn’t be complete without a lot of other things: tonkatsudon, fresh sushi from Tsukiji market, bowls or racks of soba and udon, curry, yakitori and while not traditionally Japanese (at all) a stop at the Brazilian bbq place in Harajuku where you can eat some of the finest meat to your heart’s content for about 20 quid. I’m going to miss Japanese food that’s for sure. No matter what you might think, until you’ve been to Japan it’s true that you’re unlikely to have really experienced the variety and breadth of Japanese cooking. They are a people who truly know how to eat and enjoy eating, and that’s one of the best things you can ever hope for.

Having started my trip in China, I was hoping to indulge in some traditional Chinese food and actually get to see and taste for myself whether or not Chinese food inside the country is any different to the dishes we’re served in the West. I’d heard before leaving that it was going to be different, as it’s common knowledge that Chinese food in the West has been adapted for different tastes, but also that it may not be all that exciting.

This turned out to be partially true, but I think only because I was in Beijing which isn’t one of the biggest culinary parts of the country. I guess that means another trip to different parts of the country is required at some point in the future. I did get some nice surprises, but it’s true that by and large the food was uninspiring and quite dissapointing. Highlights included the steamed buns, which are massively popular in Japan and which you can buy pretty much anywhere in the street with a variety of stuffings, a nice change from the almost always meat stuffed ones you get abroad. Also surprising was the Chinese version of yakitori: huge skewers of lamb meat, grilled but not overdone and covered in spices. Grabbing one on the street and eating as you walk along is a nice experience, but make sure you got plenty of water at hand because the spices are truly firing. Apart from those two things I can’t say that anything else really caught my attention apart from one guy I found who served noodles which were really amazing. A little like a cold ramen I guess, with fresh herbs, spices and a little bit of broth around a mountain of fresh noodles. That was a real surprise and something I would definitely recommend anyone check out, though I’m not even sure if it’s actually a Chinese dish or something else as I just sat down, pointed and ate. I also tried a couple of different ducks in the traditional Peking style, but they were either overly priced or just not that different to any Peking duck I’ve had in the West. On my last night I went to a more ‘classy’ restaurant which served some nice and interesting dishes, but I found that they really didn’t feel that different to what I’m used to out West. Apparently I missed out on the hotpots, which are supposedly a specialty of Beijing.

Overall though, Beijing was a little disappointing when it came to food, and I left feeling like the sayings that Chinese isn’t really all that probably has a certain grounding in reality. Another interesting thing is that a lot of the food in Beijing also seems to lack vegetables, meaning you end up eating quite stodgy, filling food which isn’t always a nice thing.

And so coming to Vietnam I had high hopes for my food excursions, and boy was I not disappointed. Especially considering that I had to spend 2 days on the train eating pretty much nothing but pot noodles, which is hardly the most exciting thing but in a sense the perfect way to prepare yourself for a food overdose in Vietnam.

Hanoi was amazing for food. Everywhere you turned and looked in the Old Quarter, street vendors fought for your attention (well not really your attention) with little kitchens set up on the pavement, on corners or in small shops and offering a breathtaking variety of food - all bright colours, varied sizes and most importantly, amazing smells. It seemed to me that a lot of these small stalls offer dishes based on what they get from the market, as I noticed on both nights I was in town that in the evening a lot of them offered seafood and fish while during the day it was a lot more meat based, all ingredients I would see in the market in the daytime. Add to this Vietnamese pho, which I guess is a sort of ramen, but a lot finer and easier on the stomach, and you’ve got the perfect ingredients for an absolute food blow out.

In my 3 days in Hanoi I tasted some truly amazing food. Of course there was the pho, which a lot of people in Vietnam eat for breakfast. Now while that may sound odd, it actually works a treat and sets you up for the rest of the day. The broth in the pho is generally really light, still fatty but nowhere near as greasy as a standard ramen. It’s the perfect way to start the day. I also had a couple of different pho on my last day, including one with a tomato based broth and lots of mint and fresh herbs, which was quite nice (but a little overpriced unfortunately). And then there was the spring rolls, another Vietnamese speciality which is absolutely unbelievable out here - whether raw or deep fried, they just taste out of this world, with fresh ingredients and just flavours that burst in your mouth. I actually ended up eating mainly spring rolls in my two days on the train between Hanoi and Saigon, just because I couldn’t get enough of it. There’s something about the deep fried ones which is incredibly addictive.

Being pretty much illitterate and unable to communicate out here, you soon learn that if you want to eat like the locals you need to take a chance and just grab a seat at a little stall, smile and wait for them to either bring you whatever food they’re selling or point to stuff that they have on offer. And then hope that they won’t try and overcharge you too much. Still that’s very much part of the fun for me. I could just go and eat in more normal restaurants, where I’d probably get traditional food but pay a lot more (which would still be fairly inexpensive in Western eyes) but then that just wouldn’t be fun. And it has been incredibly good fun just trying to figure out who is selling what, walking around and picking out a stall and trying my luck.

Doing has meant discovering some amazing little dishes - from weird pre-cooked noodles which you dip in a cold, minty broth to vegetable pancakes, spicy chicken and some amazing slow cooked pork in sweet sauce. My time in Hanoi was definitely made all the more amazing by the food, and having found a couple of spots which I kept hitting up and where they kept serving me different stuff everytime and not overcharging.

I made it to Saigon yesterday and it seems that already things are a little different down here. There’s less of the street stalls and more little local restaurants, where the stalls are basically inside rather than on the street as such, no doubt because the streets are a lot bigger and more polluted down here. Still there’s bargains to be had and as much variety as I saw in Hanoi. What’s more Saigon seems to have a lot more markets, which are really amazing to just walk around, taking in the sights, sounds and smells. It seems like the pho down here is also a little different, or so some guide leaflet tells me but personally I haven’t been able to really tell the difference, apart from the fact that maybe there are more spices and herbs in the soup. I’ve also had some really nice pork down here, which seems to be marinated and cooked in a blend of spices not too disimilar from Indian Tandoori.

I’ve got another 2 days in Saigon so am set to try and uncover some more new dishes and then it’s onwards to Cambodia and Malaysia where I’m told to also expect some very interesting and different things. And then I appropriately finish my time in Asia in Hong Kong where I can go and indulge in my love of dim sum - it’s going to get messy.

Popularity: 5%

written by Laurent \\ tags: bun, China, eating, food, Japanese Food, Peking duck, pho soup, ramen, South East Asia, spring rolls, travelling, Vietnam