Ramen is very ‘in’ right now – there’s a good restaurant on Richmond Row in London, and another near Square One in Mississauga. But, much as I like the proper restaurant-style ramen, with overnight dashi broth, I gotta admit, I like the grocery store packets best. I don’t eat it often, maybe once a month or so, but they’re handy to have in the house if you don’t feel like cooking. There’s lots of different types here – the square packets with Asian flavours or the pot noodles like our cup-a-soup. The versions of the square packets are pretty good, but there’s not a huge selection in Orkney. And there’s no Ichiban.
Sapporo Ichiban is my favorite ramen. And much as I like the Demae Sesame or Mama Kim-chi flavours here, I miss Ichiban. So I went online and found I could order a package of 5 from Amazon. I was just about to hit the Purchase button when I saw the price – £17! Seventeen GBP for five packets of ordinary, original flavour ramen!! I hit Cancel – and picked up some more Demae at Tesco.
When LL asked me if she could bring anything from Canada, I said (and I quote), “If you could pick up a couple of packets of Ichiban original ramen, that would be great, thanks.”
The first words out of LL’s mouth when we met at the airport last week were, “They’ve lost one of my suitcases, but don’t worry, it’s not the one with the ramen.” Someone who clearly understands me. Then we got out to the car, she asked for a large grocery carry-all bag, opened a case, and started pulling out packets of ramen and bags of Miss Vickie’s Spicy Dill Pickle chips. Two bags of chips (that was a nice surprise, thank you very much) and eighteen packets of ramen. Yes, eighteen. You know how I said that on our road trip, pretty much every day we had to re-pack the trunk of the car? That massive grocery bag of Japanese noodles moved daily, from behind my coats, to on top of the cases, to under LL’s feet, you name it. It’s a wonder she wasn’t stopped at customs.
Here is what she brought. Now I did say I only eat ramen about once a month or so, and I’m already 7 months into a 24-month stay. But you see, this is also the best ramen for Best of Bridge’s Killer Coleslaw. Which I love, as does LL. If you’ve never had it, you really should try it – dead easy to make, and good on the second day as well.
Thank you, LL. Thank you very, very much.