Sunday, September 10, 2023

New ramen place ラーメン豚山

A new ramen place called ラーメン豚山 (Ramen Tonzan; 豚山 literally means pork mountain) opened in the area, and we thought we would go try it out.

You order at the machine at the store entrance. There are three sizes: mini, small, and big. The sign says that "small size" is the most popular one, and that mini has 125g of noodles, small has 250g, and big has 375g. We thought we would go with the size that most people eat, since big can be humongous in Japan and mini sounds like something for kids. On hindsight, BIG mistake.

While waiting for the noodles to be cooked, a small sign at the table said that you can choose the amount of vegetable topping too. The normal serving is 300g, while less vegetables would be 150g, more would be 450g, and extra would be 600g. Again, we didn't think much about it and thought we would go with the usual stuff.

And then this arrived.
The bowl has a diameter of around 30cm since it is hard to gauge the size from this photo.
 
If you think about it, at home, we usually cook 100g of pasta per person. Even if it is not a one-to-one, 250g of noodles should have sounded like a lot. I also never noticed that the usual pack of bean sprouts sold at supermarkets come in 200g packs. So 300g of vegetables (99% bean sprouts) is like 1.5 times the usual size you buy at the supermarket. Also 1.5 times the size of what I can finish for dinner.
 
2.5 times the amount of noodles and 1.5 times the amount of bean sprouts means a lot more food that I can finish. Luckily, I was having dinner with someone who could eat, so I did my best to eat what I could, and passed the remainder (which was like half of the noodles; I did my best to finish the bean sprouts) to him.

I will need to be really really hungry to ever go back to this place again. 😅

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