#aburasoba

手打ち式中華そば hanare「特製油そば」

✔️Store name / Menu

My 4-year quest to find aburasoba again is over. The divine food. The noodles of the gods. While writing into a scene with Chuuya for my big bang fic, I decided to check my local ramen shop. There it was, advertised as a limited special! And what a special it was, worth the 4 year wait and countless fruitless searches.

In a manner of speaking I am addressing the title of this post to myself… you see ~ flash back moment ~ I spent the last 6 months eating my fair (I say fair… it was way more than fair to be fair…more like copiously superabundant) share of abura soba*, because in order to get to Japan I had to pay the troll toll n grind whatever was left of the joy and tenderness of my youth away in a ramen restaurant, a touch dramatically put you may think, but you weren’t there. Anyway, I ate so many abura sobas, I grew to hate the abura soba and everything it represented. The once oh so slaver-worthy raw minced garlic turned into this stifling and possessive Gollum of a flavour, the soba tasted wack and too tangy, the portion was ron measly – gonna stop there because I don’t want to throw too much shade on my ex-employer. But ultimately. It felt like the chefs were following a formula, but didn’t really care about respecting the dish. Sad. Even though I ate it loads and loads of times (I don’t eat pork so abura soba minus the chashu was the best option for me at work), I never thought it was delicious, like it never hit the oishi ~twinkle~ swoon mark and the flavours always left a bad taste in my mouth afterwards. So I just thought abura soba was mank and left it at that. BUT I WAS A FOOL.

It’s a rainy Tuesday night in Tokyo. I left London exactly a night ago. Actually, I don’t know if it was exactly a night ago because of the time difference, but ya zimmie lol. By 11pm, I have finally checked into the hostel, drunk a matcha kahlua, and despite what feels like having eaten an eternity’s worth of airplane meals, I am starving. The hostel recommend a local ramen joint (triggered on the get) and as I am too weak to venture any further, off I flounder to find it.

BANNINRIKI 万人力 1 Chome-24-2 Iriya, Taito City, Tokyo 110-0013

I walk in. I am immediately baffed because I forgot how to use the self-service machines. After about 9.5 seconds worth of dithering, a fellow igirisujin detected a nearby gaijin in distress and advised me to order the medium sized abura soba with extra toppings (￥1000). I exclaimed, no NO! DON’T TAKE ME BACK TO THAT PLACE ok I didn’t but I did say I had been eating abura soba all year and wasn’t feeling it. He insisted ~multiple times~ that this was the one, it was the ONE and that this restaurant had won whole AWARDS for their craft. So I decided to trust the man. I didn’t know him but I knew he wouldn’t lie to me. I ordered it and sat myself down at the counter. Ah, the ramen bar. I didn’t realise how much I had missed it until I was back in the place. And so there I waited. Waited to the sounds of a Japanese classical jazz fusion cover of Taylor Swift’s ‘Shake it Off,’ to the celebrated sounds of the slurp (if I was a minimalist composer, I would make a track that sampled slurps and call it slurp riddim), to the sounds of the abridged gochisosama deshita (gchsmadeshita), irashaimase (shmseee), arigato gozaimasu (gzaimaaas). Oh, it was there I waited. And then it came.

(I should have taken more photos in hindsight, but alas.)

Firstly, the angel (I was so hungry the lady had an ethereal glow) placed numerous small dishes of toppings stacked on top of each other. These were nori (seaweed), spring onions, an onsen tamago (a very runny boiled egg) and menma (lactate-fermented bamboo shoots). She also gave me a bowl of moyashi (beansprouts), and indicated that I should pour soy sauce on top. Finally, she arrived with a bowl of noodles and instructed me to add vinegar and chilli oil to my heart’s content. She also kindly handed me a sheet explaining what do. Bruv, let me tell you, I went for it. I grinded almonds into it, salt bae’d ground peanuts onto it, swooshed that chilli oil n vinegar 2 time, and the garlic… the garlic… I don’t know what they do to their garlic but it felt like when Gandalf comes back from fighting balrog and becomes Gandalf the white, like lifting the lid of the pot of garlic I felt a strong burst of pure light shine out I know I compared the garlic to Gollum before so am mixing up my analogies but u know what. I don’t care. It was like that Gollum/Gandalf the grey garlic from the place I worked at … literally… yammed a leaf stone and evolved into some venasaur (dem multi-layered analogies!!!).

Anyway. I added all my toppings and the sauces and everything to the noodles, gave it a yung mix ~cue breath of the wild cooking music~ and poof! The most incredible abura soba!!! I didn’t know abura soba could taste like this. The unity and balance of flavours between sour, spicy and salty, the flavor of the yolk coming through every now and again, with every bite I took it for real left me wanting more, and rather than  feeling bloated I ended up feeling quite invigorated?  What’s more is that you can really tell that the chefs care and respect the dish in the way it deserves to be. It kinda felt like it didn’t matter how many toppings/how much sauce I added to the dish, it was constantly and consistently incredibly delicious which was a very surreal feeling. 

Arigatou gozaimashita BANNINRIKI for the great food and hospitality and for changing my mind about abura soba!

*WHAT IS ABURA SOBA?

Abura Soba is brothless ramen or oil ramen; the broth of the ramen is replaced with oil and vinegar. Toppings are added on top of the noodles and then everything is mixed together. As Abura Soba is brothless, it is considered a healthier option.