Soup of the gods

For our Saturday date last night, in honor of the recession, Blaine and I spurned fancy restaurants for a cheap ramen shop under Shinagawa train station. These places are common near big stations because you can grab a meal quickly and sit by yourself. (This photo shows Blaine's $10 salt ramen with pork - very steamy!)

Underneath the trains, there's a long hallway filled with ramen places.


We chose Saijo restaurant, where we've been before, because there's English on the menu. The restaurant is enclosed in plastic sheeting all year round.


You use a vending machine by the front door to choose dishes and pay in advance.


The menu, with English titles, hangs above the vending machine - but the vending machine only has prices and names in Japanese. So we stand there looking stupid while we match the kanji characters to get the right dish.

My 900-yen ($9) miso ramen on the menu...


... and its button on the vending machine.


The machine prints out small white tickets, which you hand to a waitress and she hands to the cooks.


5-10 minutes later, your supper arrives. We ordered 2 bowls of ramen, a $5 plate of fried gyoza (potstickers) and a $5 draft beer. It's customary to loudly slurp your noodles as you inhale them, but we're not very good at it.



The well-considered extras on the table include (left to right) soy sauce, toothpicks, white pepper or red pepper for extra-spicy flavor, chopsticks, and tissues - because the soup really can make your nose run.


Ramen, soup of the gods.