蔦 と 鳴龍 Congratulations to the two ramen shops that received Michelin stars for 2017. Above is Nakiryu, which came out of nowhere. Fantastic shop, and looking back on my review, somewhere that is deserving, but I don’t think any of the Tokyo-based ramen nerds expected that. The fact that Nakiryu and Tsuta are both just a…

Marvel x Ippudo Are you Team Captain? Or Team Stark? Let the battle begin. I was lucky enough to make it to the limited Marvel x Ippudo collaboration event with the relase of Captain America: Civil War. What does a six item, limited menu look like? How do you represent each side and all of…

The Best 50 Restaurants (all genre, mostly washoku) in Japan. Tabelog, Japan’s most popular online restaurant listing, recently released a curated list of the 50 best in Japan. You may recall that I recently wrote about their 50 best ramen, a post that can be seen here. Well, I’m almost finished with the ramen list,…

蓮華チャンス 蓮華チャンス What do you get when you cross an Australian professional wrestler with Japanese schoolgirl cosplay? Photo used with permission from Ladybaby’s official site. Official blog here. You get Ladybeard! And what do you get when you cross Ladybeard with the newest genre of Japanese junior idol heavy metal music? Photo used with permission from Ladybaby’s…

Osaka Ramen Expo 2015 I seem to be visiting a lot of these expos lately, despite my general ambiguity to ramen events. It’s cold out, this place is a 40 minute drive from central Osaka, and ramen served in a plastic bowl tends to add a lot of meh to an otherwise good bowl. But…