What's up guys, I'm in Tokyo at the legendary Taishoken Ramen Shop,
and this is a dream come true right now.
I've been wanting to come here ever since - I don't remember
Years ago, I was sitting there watching Netflix, you know.
Of course, I was watching food shows and I saw this particular episode with chef David Chang, and he went to this Ramen place in Tokyo.
And my memory is pretty bad, but I remember this very clearly.
He went to this Ramen place.
He ordered through a vending machine and got what looked like some of the most beautiful ramen I have ever seen.
Here's why I thought it was beautiful.
First of all, it looked delicious.
The way he was describing the noodles, sounding really yummy. It was dipped ramen which I really, really love.
Also one of my biggest complaints, whenever I go to a ramen shop is the quantity.
It's just never enough. I always have to add extra orders of ramen noodles, but not here.
The portion he got was ginormous!
So to me, as soon as I saw that, it was love at first sight.
I knew I had to go there. I knew I had to go to that ramen shop.
I wanted to use the vending machine to order ramen, and I wanted that glorious, massive pile of noodles sitting in front of me.
And today, finally, I'm here.
My dream's gonna come true.
First of all, ordering my ramen, which is a very unique process, you order everything uh.. utilizing this vending machine here.
Everything here is in Japanese.
They have a matching English menu so you know what to push.
and the top is, as you can see, cold noodles dipped in hot soup.
That's what I want. I want cold noodles in hot soup.
First thing what we're gonna do is put in our money.
Next, we're gonna choose our noodles.
We're gonna get the very famous morisoba.
And here for 200 yen, I'm gonna get a extra large size.
This is supposed to be a massive proportion of ramen.
I wanna get it spicy, and I want a boiled egg on it.
These tickets are gonna pop out. Give it to them, and you can go pick up your ramen.
Wow, my noodles just came, and oh my god, words cannot express my emotions right now.
because, if you guys have ever wanted something for so long,
you imagine what it would be like when you held it for the first time,
but when you do, when that moment is finally here, it's almost like,
I can't believe I'm sitting here right now about to eat something I saw on Netflix years ago.
Okay, that sounded really dumb, but I am super, super excited about this.
First of all, look at this, guys. Look at this massive bowl of beautiful, beautiful looking noodles.
This way, I can tell you, I mean just from the texture, as I'm pulling it with my chopsticks,
these noodles are thick, they're chewy, they're all fancy,
I know, I know this are gonna be so, so good.
When I was looking at this online, most people said that they would usually get the smaller version.
And even that is pretty big.
This is the largest size possible.
And I'll tell you, this size, and me? This is the perfect match right here.
You're looking at a perfect pair. Mike and this bowl of ramen, we fit together.
Look at this soup. This soup looks so beautiful.
Definitely has a strong porky aroma. Let me just taste this.
Wow, this soup is very concentrated.
And that makes sense, because this is dipped ramen.
There's definitely an array of flavors in here.
I definitely taste pork, I can taste the seafood, and I think there might be a little bit of chicken in here as well.
Spicy already, before even adding any of the spicy paste that they brought for me.
And it has such a nice smoky flavor to it.
One thing this soup is not, is it's not fatty at all.
A lot of times when I eat ramen, the broth, you can tell, is very oily on top, and it is fatty.
It's got pieces of pork belly inside, and you can tell, that soup is going to be very gelatinous.
But this, this soup is actually very crisp.
Although there is a massive piece of pork in here.
But you know what? Enough talk. I'm gonna go ahead and try this.
Take my noodles...
dip it in the broth...
Again, when you fantasize about something, and for me,
99% of everything I fantasize revolves around food
you think about it so much, you don't know what it's actually gonna be like when you take that first bite.
I gotta do this again really quick.
I was right: this soup is not fatty at all.
And it tastes very simple and yet complex at the same time.
I know there's so many ingredients in this soup.
Like I said, definitely taste some pork, some seafood, a hint of chicken
but the flavors are all not really heavy.
It's the type of broth that I could just keep eating and not feel like it's too much for me.
And the noodles, look, oh my god.
The noodles I feel like they're a lot thicker than the typical noodles you'll find at a ramen place.
It's chewy, it's bouncy, it's made fresh in the restaurant.
Ooh, just found this sitting on the table.
Mmm, wow, this is hot oil made with sesame oil.
This is very aromatic. Gonna dump this into the soup.
Hot oil infused ramen.
Whoa, that's got some heat to it.
Not only did this kick the heat up by a lot, it added such a nice sesame flavor to the noodles.
And you know, sesame and noodles, they've always been really good together.
Trust me, add this to your broth. It's gonna elevate your ramen noodle experience even further.
I've kinda neglected this huge piece of pork sitting in my bowl.
So good!
I was gonna say that it didn't really melt in my mouth like normal pork belly does,
but this, as you guys can see, is a very lean piece of pork.
I don't know what they did to this. My first bite, I was like, ah okay, it's just okay.
But as I chewed, and the flavor released, this is really good roast pork.
I feel like the common theme here is noodles are thicker,
and definitely the pork is a lot thicker than you'll find at regular ramen places.
But believe me, the flavor is there.
Alright, that's it. I finished it.
Hey, there's still a little piece left.
I'm sorry about that.
Take care of that right now. Finished it.
It was that good, and I'll tell you guys this, honestly,
I could go for round two, which I did.
I got another smaller bowl on top of the big bowl that I finished
because seriously, I just, I mean, I can't stop eating right now.
Somebody please stop me; this is getting to be a problem.
I wanted another piece of the pork, which I loved, and definitely some more of this ramen.
I mean, hey look, I don't know when I'm gonna come back to Japan again, so I gotta eat all I can.
So if you guys been here before, let me know in the comments below whether you like it or not.
If you haven't, definitely come and try this place out.
Also I heard that they started their own brand of instant ramen, which look, that's not gonna be the same.
But this meal has been so awesome for me, as you can tell.
Because basically, I'm living out a dream.
And what I had today, it did not disappoint.
Alright guys, thank you all so much for watching. See ya.