Hey guys, it's Mike Chen, you know, I've done a lot of videos on ramen, a lot of videos on Ramen
But I haven't done a lot on its equally delicious slightly thicker cousin the udon
So I really wanted to go try some of the best udon places here
And the first place I'm going to is widely considered one of the most popular one of the best who udon places in Tokyo
Shin Udon. We're a few minutes from Shinjuku Station
and
It's down this little street. Yep. I see the line already. Supposedly there's always a line right now is about 3:30 in the afternoon
still a line
They give you a menu as you're waiting in line, and of course it's separated into cold udon and hot udon
That looks insane and there's a fried bacon. It's a hot day. I had to try both hot in the cold. So I got two
Actually, because I was by myself, only waited a few minutes
That's the glow of a star taking center stage on that plate even though the tempura looks amazing, but make no mistake
This is a hundred percent the star
Start off a little tempura
Oh my god even the chicken tempura gave me a little out-of-body experience.
Oh my gosh, my tempura was remarkable. This is not even the start of the meal, so light and crispy on the outside
So juicy. All right, we've got to get into the meals. I can't wait any more
The noodles are just incredibly, incredibly chewy and fresh and that slurp just cooled me down all the way to my core
The dipping sauce you taste the dashi I think a bit of anchovies as well.
A little soy, the flavor, if you look up umami in the dictionary, you'll find this dipping sauce
It's almost just like a sweet crispy shrimp lollipop
That was the perfect crunchy company to these soft chewy noodles
That's a slurp you never want to end. I love cold udon just because I want the original texture
I want my noodles to be as chewy as possible
This piece of tempura is just amazing
So tender
I mean I've had udon, obviously, in New York
It doesn't come close. Just the freshness and the bounciness and chewiness of the noodles alone
Beats anything I've had outside of Japan.
And the dipping sauce, because the noodles are thick, you need something with a lot of flavor
I mean, just one swim through the sauce made the noodles so incredibly tasty
Just that umami flavor like that will imprint on my memory
For the rest of my life
Glad I started with a cold first because I was pretty hot outside, now I'm ready to heat things up more
There's some cheese pepper sitting on top of egg yolk
and I mainly got this bowl because this
A tempura bacon, I mean bacon's already good, but can you imagine it tempura-ised?
Wow, I can smell the cheese just
Melting on to the noodles right now.
even the yolks built this awesome little nest down here you see that?
and the noodles are just
Steeping in it about having a lot of fun partying together
becoming even more delicious and what's so perfect about these noodles is that
They are grabbing on to the sauce because that's what they do best.
Not only does it give it a great creamy texture, it binds all the ingredients onto the noodles themselves
This is the most deliciously decadent bowl of udon, ever. I mean, cheesy udon
Udon's already good, add some cheese in it, makes it even better
Mix some spice and sesame seeds in here as well. It's not one-dimensional at all because usually with cheese it's all you can taste is cheese
But you can also taste the creaminess of the eggs and the umami
Still from the- from some- from the sauce they added to the bottom of this bowl
And by the way, meet the ultimate piece of bacon. Is there anything more decadent and satisfying than a fried piece of bacon?
The answer there is not anything. This is just crazy
Wow, that's just insane. I don't even know how to begin to describe this right now. I think I just blacked out for a minute
This is just intense, this might be the creamiest tasting bacon I've ever had because
After taking a crunch on the outer layer of the tempura because the outer layer of the tempura is crunchy it has soaked up all
that egg and cheese
So you get that huge cream factor, but this bowl is just wrong. There's just it's it's like it's so good. It's wrong
But it's so simply delicious, if this is wrong, I-I-I don't want it to be right
I'ts so intense every single bite
I'm a little overwhelmed, but I love the fact that and even though it's so cheesy
You can still taste all the other elements in this bowl like the crunchy fragrant scallions
That was incredible, I wish I had some more noodles just kind of
Lap up that little bit of leftover sauce. 'Cause I really just don't want to waste a single drop of this
It's bad manners to lick your bowl clean in Japan, right? Yeah, but pretty much bad manners anywhere?
alright
How awesome was that? Let's go talk outside. All right, that was an incredible udon feast that I just had.
The thing that stood out most about that place to me was how incredibly fresh and chewy the noodles were.
The tempuras were great. The sauce is great. The broth is great
But those noodles I mean without a doubt that was magical. We can see him making them fresh in the window
I mean noodles, you gotta have it fresh.
I think the two orders I got really contrasted each other,
and I'm glad I got the cold and the hot so I could kind of compare
The cold, the noodles are definitely a lot chewier, a lot more al dente
That was when I was able to experience the full-on potential that the, the star quality of those noodles
I mean, do you see it- shiny? I mean it knows it's a star. The dipping sauce also was perfect
I've been to udon places where you dip the noodles in because the noodles are typically a little thick sometimes, you don't
You don't get a lot of flavor
but not here. One dip, all you need.
And then the hot udon was literally a flavor bomb.
A cheesy flavor bomb
I mean that was as decadent of a bowl of udon as you'll ever find I think. I mean cheese and egg yolk and
A piece of fried bacon. You guys who've had really good tempura before
you know how good really good tempura is right? Now imagine adding bacon to that. And I love the fact that although it is so
Cheesy and so much flavor, it doesn't cover up the individual ingredients as added into that bowl
I'm just glad I got both
I mean I asked for both I expected them to be like no
It's too much for you or they didn't want to serve me two bowls, but they were really cool. They were really nice
That was just a deliciously satisfying experience and as my first official
Udon meal here in Tokyo I think I'm pretty happy. Alright, there's a couple more really unique places
I want to go to but I think they're closed for today. So see you tomorrow.
Hey, good morning.
Such a nicer day today, right? I mean, come on, who needs the sun and the humidity. This is like cloudy and nice, about to rain.
Yeah, this is good noodle weather and I'm going to my next udon place. It's called Hanayama Udon
And I walk to this neighborhood and I see this
And I got scared because
I mean, it's thirty minutes before the store is opening, but luckily they're waiting for omelette rice, which that's still pretty awesome.
I might, I might try this afterwards if the line is short, but thank God not my line,
My line is over there, I think.
And they're open 30 minutes before, don't trust Google's time on this stuff
This udon is really really unique. In fact, it didn't look like it udon, let me show you, going for the white udon.
Looks like, almost chinese lahng mien and they have the regular one as well, but gotta go for these
Again, cold or hot. And their wide noodles are called oni-himokawa. And they actually won, um,
The first place in the battle of udon for three consecutive years. I gotta say, big thank you to the way staff here
they don't speak much English and
that was a lot of patience dealing with me because I was trying to order all sorts of stuff and
ask all sorts of questions through sign language and
I think we made it
So, she told me to eat some of these vegetables
I think this is where the chili is, but haven't really figured out how to use it.
Okay, I'm really stupid you pull, you pull this out and then you dump the chili
Pickled vegetable's really yummy.
This will go really well with the udon.
My neighbor's udon is here and just kind of giving her the sly eye
Looks so good
And uh, I just heard this older Japanese gentleman sitting besides me utter the magical words; oishii
after a big slurp
The anticipation is killing me
First of all, this bowl is so cute. It's that famous.. bear, forgot his name
Hot udon, see some bamboo. Some veggies, carrots, fish cake, and I get a side of
Salmon roe with the preserved veggies over rice and seaweed.
And again what's really unique about this udon place: check out the noodles
they look like
Chinese hand pulled
Wide noodles, the type I love. This looks so incredibly beautiful, you know
You know how like Wizard of Oz it's got the golden brick road. Well, this is the delicious wide
udon road that's laid across this bowl and this is the noodles they're really known for.
So if you come here, this is where you gotta get.
Wow, oishii is right. That guy beside me, he wasn't kidding about this being totally oishii
I thought the last udon place I went to had a huge umami flavor. This is the king of all that is umami.
Oh my god
This is borderline incredible
Mmm. I don't know what I love more, the broth or the noodles.
The noodles are extremely chewy and so incredibly smooth
Oh, wow, seriously, this broth, this is some of the greatest broth you could ever have in udon.
And these noodles, although they're wide are so refined and clean, and fresh.
I didn't know udon broth could taste like this
And it's seemingly simple. You guys want to see a udon conveyor belt
Mixed in a little pickle veggies. Wow, pickled veggies' good too.
We can also really tell the quality of ingredients they use, the dashi, the Cebu flavor they add to it
I've never sipped soup from a bear before so don't judge me
We had a really intimate food relationship today me and this bear
Totally forgot about the rice. She recommended this. First of all, this thing is just pretty
Pretty and yummy
Little slimy too. And it's tasty. Definitely not as good as the udon.
And that's why it's a side dish
I try to finish my hot udon as quickly as I can
Because we got the cold one waiting right here. Some tempura shrimp, and mushrooms.
And here is my cold udon. Just as beautiful as I left it
This is their number one recommended dish here. And they told me to pour some of this into the wasabi
Something I love in a bowl of noodles; soft boiled egg, a mound of meat, in this case fatty pork belly.
Watch that eggy golden waterfall just wash over
all the ingredients
inside this bowl and what this is gonna do is gonna give it a super creamy texture and
And it's gonna bind all the ingredients together. Mix it a little bit. Just let that egg get in there.
I love this place, the texture of noodles is incredible, amazingly chewy and it's not as chewy probably as the regular udon
Because it doesn't have the thickness
But you're gonna really appreciate the mouthfeel of these noodles because they are so so smooth and because they're thinner
They're able to grab onto more of the seasoning, the ingredients around it and I just dumped some of the sauce on here.
And they're are actually really really sturdy noodles, I mean I'm pulling them out none of them you see,
None of them are really damaged and they're not going soft
Little wasabi, unbelievable. Give you a little bowl of tempura over rice.
That's a nice crunch, a little bit sweet, ridiculous crunch, tempura mushrooms are my favorite.
On the menu, they say that they source all their ingredients locally and they try to keep things simple
You can definitely tell the high quality of the ingredients, but trust me
Ain't nothing simple about this if we come here gotta try the hot broth
That's a must, but also you got to get an order of the cold noodles.
It's really interesting because the noodles are incredibly delicate. They're refined, they're beautiful, and just eating that with a melty mouthful of pork belly.
That's like an orchestra and hard rock in a bowl and trust me they go really really well together
Anyway a little bit of egg and broth left in my bowl; I got an idea.
My leftover rice.
That's awesome. Little wasabi, a little yolky, a little creamy. Great way to finish that rice.
You have a great job I mean, everyday people just filling your belly with udon noodles.
I hope you know how lucky you are
Oh my god, since I was eating the Udon,
the omelette rice line grew, like
Like three folds this is crazy. Good lord. I'm glad I wasn't filming this today.
Maybe I should be.
That was two amazing udon places.
My only regret is I couldn't go to more udon places because I'm leaving soon,
So I guess I'm u-done, which is something really sad to say but guys next time you're in Japan, of course get your ramen
But don't forget this show udon some love, you know, cuz really they deserve it and trust me when you love them
They're gonna love you back
Like right here right here and here and as always the places I went to is listed for you in my description box below
Thank you all so much for watching. So till we eat again. See you later
This is the omrice. All right, you know what, just, just thought I'd get in line for this omurice
It's right by the udon place, might as well. Vivian, we're gonna eat together. This is gonna be cool
Alright, so you get a lunch set, and one food item, creamy omelet on fried rice. I think that's what I'm gonna get.
I don't like to food shame, but this thing is a little plump and jiggly.
I'm kind of confused by this. Oh, it's good. It's good, right? Vivian: It's really good.
Mikey: Is that ketchup spicy or is it just me? Vivian: Let me try.
Vivian: It's very tangy, and so buttery
Mikey: Yeah, you taste a lot more of the ketchup than you thought and then the texture is is really interesting.
It is extremely creamy. You know what this tastes like really? It's just like a bunch of butter and rice. After the initial surprise of this
And you just kind of let the egg
Swirl around touching every single grain of the rice. Every bite you take, I love the rice cause it's such a texture contrast.
Eating this, it's like going on a date.
When you first see each other, you meet, you taste it,
You're like, eh, it's okay.
But then like, after like, the fourth or fifth bite you're just like, I bought the ring already and I just don't know what to pop the question.
It does get overly creamy after a few more bites. So almost exactly like a relationship
after the marriage
Sometimes it gets a little overbearing and that's when you add some pickled radish to the relationship
You need a little spice, a little acid, a little tanginess in your love affair
otherwise,
won't last, remember that guys, for dating and for food.
I'm having us some green tea. Oh wow, I'm glad I came in here. I saw the line and wasn't gonna come in.
Luckily, saw Vivian, so, ate together, good food, good company.
Thanks Vivian! Vivian: Yeah, you're welcome.
Mikey: All right, now, I'm gonna go.
Nap or something? I don't know what I do after I eat it's kind of kind of a blur until my next meal
See you later.