Day 1: It Begins!

So, here we are already, the beginning. Day 1 of 31. And unfortunately for you guys it was nothing thrilling. I have been to this restaurant before many times, 80 times in fact, as you know. So today was just like every other time I have ever been pretty much. But, seeing as you will be new to this, I will give you a quick lowdown.

So i found out that I get 並ラメーン(nami-ramen) or the basic, no frills ramen free. Thats the ramen you see as the top left bowl in the picture below. If I choose any of the other options I get the price of the nami-ramen off. So this free ramen offer will get me either one bowl of ramen free per day, or I can get ¥650 ($6.60/£4) off my order.

What you see here is basically a weeks worth of what I will be getting free

So each bowl in the picture is a different "Kind" of ramen, but to be honest they are pretty much all the same just with extra toppings. you can have egg, extra meat, wantan, a miso broth instead of meat or a thick soup. Unfortunately, my poor photography skills have failed to capture the spicy ramen picture just to the right. The spicy ramen is great when you have a cold, so I'm sure I will order it in the next month as Japan gets bitterly cold!

All the ramen is slightly customisable too, you can change the noodle consistency, hard or soft, the strength of the broth, how much fat, how spicy the spicy broth is, how much green onion or meat. I always go for less fat and move flavour, I can trick myself that this is healthy but I think I'm just trading fat for sodium. 

As can tell, no smoking at lunch, of course dinner is fine, you cant get lung cancer at dinner!

So today I opted for the wantan-men, and I of course got gyouza, which are a Japanese fried version of Chinese dumplings. I am a massive fan of gyouza and to me, if your ramen shop doesn't serve gyouza then you aren't much of a ramen shop. I suppose they are because they do sell ramen, but still. Anyway, gyouza are the things in the top right of this picture, the biggest plate of things.

I will admit I have eaten everything on here at least once, no regrets!

Something else I love about ramen shops is the extras, there are so many delicious food you can order with your ramen. Such as; Fried chicken, plates of meat, gyouza with cheese on top, deep fried fish and another personal favourite of mine, deep fried cheese wrapped in a type of pastry. AMAZING! Therefore, if you can think of anything fried and unhealthy, a good ramen shop will most likely sell it in some form. Oh, I forgot to add that they also sell gyouza with cheese on top, see, everything!

So today I got the wantan-men and the gyouza which looks a little like this:

1 down 30 to go

Which should have costed ¥1030 ($10.50/£6.50) but only cost me ¥380 ($4/£2.50), I am perfectly happy with that, and of course it was delicious, however, there was feeling in the back of my mind reminding me that I will be having this flavour for the rest of the month. I think this could end up being like when you set your favourite song as your morning alarm, sounds like such a good idea until you start hating it for bringing you the pain of being ripped from your comfortable bed every morning.

For now I think it will still all be good. Another day, another ramen!