tuftears | Not Always My Cooking: Ryowa Ramen's Chashu Don

The other day,

dracosphynx happened to be in my neck of the woods so we met up for dinner. "Suggest somewhere for us to eat?" I pleaded of

chipotle, who is a 'yote what knows food. Among the various options, Ryowa Ramen cropped up as the most interesting (and importantly for misercats, inexpensive) choice.

So we traipsed down there. It's only a block off of Castro Street (Mountain View, not San Francisco) and it looks like an utter hole in the wall, the sort of shop you'd find in deep Japantown, San Jose, or Chinatown, San Francisco, but there was a line of people waiting to get in! Hmm. While we waited, I peered about and espied a manga collection within the shop. Awesome! In Japanese, alas, so I wasn't about to flip through them. They also had two TVs set to a Japanese obstacle course game show.

They actually asked us what we wanted to eat a few minutes before we got to sit down! Given how many people they had waiting, it seemed pretty reasonable. When we got seated, it was at one of the U-shaped tables, which provide room for the waitresses to move around behind them and serve the customers. They brought barley tea, and soon... Food!

dracosphynx opted for the Ryowa Ramen, which looked like a HUGE bowl of eggy noodles, with chashu (I think?) simmering in the broth. I detected a soft-boiled egg as well!

My choice was the chashu (barbecued pork) don, which is basically a rice dish filled with all sorts of tastee things. Well, less and more tasty things, but it was all good. The violently pink stuff there is pickled carrot (I think), which was tart, the yellow strips are scrambled eggs, then there's chashu which was extraordinarily soft and tasty, and spinach, which was why I'd ordered it -- more in the way of vegetables. All this was on a bed of Japanese rice with tiny bits of nori (seaweed) mixed in, and I believe there was some egg or both that mixed in and made it deliciously savory.

Miso soup on the side as well, with chicken. Pretty decent, getting all this for about $10 including tip, when most restaurants on Castro Street would have run $15-25!

I had enough chashu and rice left over by the end to take the rest home, where with a bit of extra vegetables, I would have another full fledged meal. ^_^

dracosphynx appeared to enjoy the Ryowa Ramen. If I come back to this place, I'll probably want to try that, along with some of the gyozas, but given how much he got, I'd definitely plan on bringing some back as leftovers.