teppei

The air wafts with kinmokusei (sweet olive). I associate Autumn with this aroma.

The daytime is still warm but the evenings and early mornings are getting colder.

Wednesday, Satoshi had the day off so we ran some errands in the morning.

At lunchtime, we decided to check out a ramen shop called Teppei, actually the name is longer but for blogging purposes I'm cutting the name short, near the Minoo station.

This shop was featured in a magazine recently and was giving a little discount on one of their special dishes.

Like I said, the weather during the day is still quite warm, so it is not really ramen weather for me, but Satoshi is always ready to eat ramen no matter how hot it is out.

You buy tickets for what you want to eat at the entrance to the shop. There are only 13 seats and they are all around the counter.

It was peak lunch time when we got there but we were lucky enough to find 2 seats together.

Satoshi ordered the special with gyoza, a tsukemen--noodles which you dip into the broth, topped with sanma (pacific saury).

The broth was made from tonkotsu (pork fat, bones) and fish....790 yen + 290 yen (about US$10.80)

We were warned that this dish takes at least 14 minutes to prepare (why not round up to 15 then??), so I oohed and aahed at their line of pots in the kitchen making the soup and cooking the char siu.

I also oohed and aahed at their industrial sized refrigerators lining one whole side of the shop, I think they had about 6.

Satoshi's dish came out 14 minutes later give or take...he loves fish, so he said this was good (with a thumbs up!) Though he said that the broth was really rich.

He let me try some and it was fishy but not in a bad way. The noodles were a bit thicker than ramen noodles I have tried before, more like udon.

The gyoza, I didn't try, but Satoshi said, "meh, it was nothing special".

In fact, he thought that these were frozen, not homemade.

Like I said, I wasn't in the mood for ramen, so I ordered the Teppei Meshi, a bowl of rice topped with two thick pieces of char siu, soft boiled egg & green onions.

Man, this char siu was THICK, at least an inch or two! I had seen others given scissors to cut their char siu and wondered why I wasn't given one, I guess I should've asked.

The char siu was so thick that I couldn't bite into it, a bit discouraging but after breaking it apart with my fingers, I enjoyed the flavor--hints of sweet and salty.

Pieces that were closer to the fat were tender and easy to eat.

Despite having a hard time eating the char siu, it was a great dish and only 490 yen (about US$4.90).

We'll be back when ramen season is in full swing.

Teppei (UPDATE: 2016 no longer in business)
6-1-34 Minoo, Minoo Residence 1F
Open 11:30-15:00 (Lunch), 18:00-02:00 (Dinner/Late Night)

p.s. it is the start of a 3-day weekend here, hope you all have a great weekend!