Thursday, July 05, 2007

Matsuchan

They say that no one cars what you had for lunch when you are writing a blog, but maybe they want to know your kid had, especially when it is this awesome. Last Saturday we went to Matsuchan for lunch, and Noah got to try ramen for the first time.

Matsuchan is a terrific Japanese restaurant, with great food, good prices, and a wide variety of soup and rice dishes. The cuisine is "homestyle" (both less expensive and less elaborate, but still delicious) compared to that of sushi restaurants, and the menu is comprised of many types of noodle soup and rice dishes, such as miso or shoyu (soy) ramen, curry rice, or udon (rice noodles) soup. Representing a rare moment of restaurant sanity, instead of suggesting a separate meal for Noah (there's no kids menu) our server brought him a separate bowl so he could share our lunches. I had Shoyu Ramen, and Lauren got Corn and Butter Ramen. Both have delicious broths with a big helping of house-made ramen noodles, vegetables and a little meat. If you are used to the dry ramen in a bag, this is nothing like that and will blow away your preconceptions. These noodles are the equivalent in quality, texture and taste to any homemade pasta. I have never been able to finish a bowl of soup at Matsuchan, and even sharing the noodles with Noah we still couldn't get to the bottom.

Lauren's Corn and Butter Ramen:



Digging in:

4 comments:

Judy said...

Looks YUMMY!

I have always thought Noah favored Lauren more, but looking at this picture of the two men, I can see quite a bit of Jon in Noah!

Good qualities from both parents! That's why he's so handsome!

Sarah said...

Okay so you get all the way out to eat, and you just have Ramen? I could get that @ the grocery store for $.19

Jonathan said...

We went for the ramen! I can totally understand why people would think that strange though, because for the most part people have experienced ramen in square plastic packages. One of my favorite web sites, Worldramen.net, explains the relationship between dry ramen and homemade very well:

"Since instant noodles in cups or plastic packages are well known all over the world, for many living outside of Japan, "Ramen" is synonymous with those instant (dried) noodles. But in Japan, Ramen is a bowl dish served at specialized shops at which they cook broth from scratch. In fact, Momofuku Ando, the former Chairman of Niisin Corp. invented instant noodle/ cup noodle trying to reproduce ramen being served at specialized shops at home with ease. Of course, instant ramens are very popular and consumed a lot in Japan. But there is a clear distinction between instant ramens and ramens at restaurants."

Matsuchan's ramen is of the "from scratch" variety, which makes it delicious and nutritious, and hopefully a little less salty than the "flavor packet" that comes in the plastic bag. Check out World Ramen, it's terrific. The Ramen Gallery especially has to be seen to be believed:

http://www.worldramen.net/

Kendra Lynn said...

That looks sooo delicious!
I wanna go eat with you guys. :)

kendra