Curtains for Three

夕焼け小焼け雨が上がるよ

夕食の匂い通りに満ちてく

「NORA」（Garnet Crow）

The sunset is glowing, and look, the rain is stopping

And the roads are getting filled with the smell of dinner

"Nora" (Garnet Crow)

And yes, I have to read at least one detective story set in Fukuoka every year...

After the disappearance of his father, who once had the best ramen noodle food cart in town, Yuge Takumi had to drop out of school, but with the help of his father's friends, he eventually managed to become a private detective in the city of Fukuoka. Between his investigations for laywers, protecting clients from stalkers and getting involved with gang wars in, Yuge spends his free time on his hobby: ramen noodles. He loves visiting his favorite places, but also discovering new restaurants and see how their versions of tonkotsu ramen noodles turn out. And occassionally, Yuge even works on recreating the ramen noodles his father used to make, as both he and the people of Fukuoka still long for a good bowl of Yugefuku ramen. Yuge's love for ramen also plays a big role in his cases though, as more often than not, it's ramen that gives him that little nudge in the mind that allows him to solve the case in Nishimura Ken's short story collection Kanshoku! ("Finished!", 2015).

Long ago, I discussed the first two volumes in Nishimura Ken's Hakata Detective Case Files series. It was the main setting that had me hooked right away: it was set in Fukuoka (and I love Fukuoka) and was about a detective who solved his cases through his knowledge of ramen noodles (and I love ramen). The execution was sadly enouh a bit uneven. I think it's clear from the blog that hardboiled detective fiction isn't my favorite subgenre and the short stories in this series often took that form, so I was quite aware that it might've been a bit unfair from the start, but what I really thought was disappointing was how the link between ramen noodles and the case often felt unnatural and forced. When it worked, the stories were really great: with anecdotes on ramen noodles (and the history of the dish) proven to have some significant parallels to the case at hand. But more often than not, the connections were vague, and incredibly contrived. But on the whole, the series wasn't that bad and as it was planned as a trilogy, I did plan to read all of them. I'll have to admit that I had kinda forgotten about the series though, so I hadn't even noticed that Kanshoku!, the final volume in the trilogy, had actually been released in 2015 already....

On the whole, Kanshoku! is not very different from the previous volumes, with Yuge working on a variety of cases that either have a direct link to ramen noodles, or ones that are solved through him noticing a parallel between his case, and some random bit of ramen trivia. The big difference however is that Kanshoku! is the final volume of the trilogy, so we finally learn why Yuge's father disappeared. The final story, Saigo no Kizuna ("The Last Link") is, for now, the end of the series, revealing the fate of Yuge's father, why he disappeared and how Yuge moves on from that. About half of the stories in this volume help build up to this finale. Of those, two of them can hardly be considered mystery stories though. Chichi to Ko ("Father and Child") in particular isn't about any mystery at all. Yakuza (gangs) in Japan have traditionally shown a desire to prove their legitimacy to the public, and its rivals, for example by helping out during natural disasters, as to prove their place in society. Their link with shrines and temples is part of this, and in the old times, yakuza and shrines and temples would work together on ennichi festival days. Yuge's surrogate father, who took him in after his father's disappearance, is a yakuza boss who's organizing such a shrine festival in downtown Fukuoka, but he fears a rival gang may want to ruin his 'party' to shame his face. While the topic itself is interesting, nothing of importance happens in this story at all, not even a mystery, as it's basically sowing seeds for the finale. Aji no Kioku ("Memory of A Taste") has Yuge and a reporter friend attempting to uncover a large corruption scandal involving a town renewal project and a yakuza gang, but the way the two manage to find evidence is just slightly better than simply stumbling upon a random heap of files on the street.

Shuumeisha ("Successor") is the opening story and one of the few stories really about ramen. The second-generation owner of Touryuu, a ramen restaurant near Kyushu University's Hakozaki Campus, was assaulted on the street, and both the victim and a witness say the assailant was the head chef of the Touryuu restaurant. After the demise of the first owner, his son-in-law took over, and he started to open new Touryuu restaurants across town. They become very popular among a younger public, but only because they serve a different kind of ramen noodles. The head chef of the original Touryuu restaurant on the other hand was still making the soup just like the first boss did, and refused to change along, leading to a cold war between the second owner and the head chef. The head chef denies the accusation of assault, and says he was on the way home at the time the attack took place, and Yuge is hired to prove his innocence. Takumi's also working on another case that happened on the same night, in the same area, as he needs to prove a husband had been assaulting his wife out on the street. It's revealed the two cases are linked through a ramen cart, but I find it disappointing this link was rather weak, and Yuge basically stumbled upon evidence of his case by pure coincidence. There's also a sort of code-cracking part to the story, but no way anyone is going to figure that one out in advance.

In Mawarimichi ("Detour"), Yuge is hired by the widow of a friend who had recently died in a car accident, being overrun near the station. Her husband had originally gone out for a business trip to Tokyo, but it was cancelled on his way to the airport, so he had parted with a collegue there and was going home. The problem is that his whereabouts between him leaving his colleague, and him being getting overrun by the car are unknown, as it wouldn't had taken the husband almost six hours to make it from the airport back to their home. Fearing his last day alive might've been spent cheating on her, the widow wants Yuge to find out what he did that day. The story could've been much better with the hinting. The definitive clue isn't even described to the reader until Yuge reveals it to the widow, so the only way anyone could've solved that was if they knew the station themselves where the clue was, and knew what stood at that particular spot that told Yuge everything. There's some subtle hinting going to support Yuge's theory, that I admit, but it's a bit drowned away by all the time schedules of the various transportation lines that are quoted all the time.

Chuukeiten ("Relay Point") is a short mystery story, where Yuge needs to figure out how a small group of gangster known to be involved with an illegal weapons deal managed to get rid of the weapons in their car, even though they had been tailed from the start until the time the police stopped them. The solution is rather simple, but for once, the link between this tale, and the random ramen anecdote actually works. The connection in Tabi wa Michizure ("Good Company On The Road Is The Shortest Cut") on the other hand is pretty weak, but it's still an entertaing story. Yuge's travelling with his girlfriend and two other acquaintances by train. Among their fellow passengers, Yuge spot two people whom he suspects are money runners involved with a recent corruption scandal, as well as two undercover cops tailing them. The way Yuge deduces how the money runners are going to shake their shadows is pretty interesting, and the ending is actually surprising. There's a subplot going on, where Yuge needs to sort out a fight between the daughter of an old friend, and her fiancé, as they are having a huge row about something. The explanation to that is absolutely brilliant, and really fits well with the ramen theme. The one problem is that the average reader will probably have problems figuring it out themselves, as it requires somewhat specific knowledge. It's a topic I myself am really interested in, so I didn't felt really 'cheated', but a bit more hinting would've made this a classic tale in a very specific subgenre!

Tousaku ("Inversion") is a borderline impossible crime story. In the past, Yuge managed to help a client out who was being stalked by a man who dated her once. While the stalker was caught, his client decided to move anyway, but one day, Yuge just happened to spot the stalker again near his client's new home. The local police, who were aware of the stalker's history, had already been contacted by Yuge's client, as she found hand-posted threatening letters in her mailbox. A camera is installed over the client's mailbox, in the hopes of obtaining new evidence to put the stalker behind bars, but for some reason new letters keep getting posted, even though the stalker is not seen on the footage. So how did he manage to post them? I said it's a borderline impossible story, as it really isn't, and I think the solution is pretty easy to guess once the rather lenthy set-up is out of the way, but I quite liked this story, especially as the jump from the random ramen anecdote to the truth of the case didn't feel as forced as in other stories.

For people interested in tonkotsu ramen though, there's once again a wealth of information to be found here. Nishimura is obviously very knowledgeable about the matter (ramen is serious business), and you'll learn a lot about the history of tonkotsu ramen, not only as a "dish" as well as an object of interest in cultural history. People interested in food history, food culture, early twentieth century history and antropology will be pleasantly surprised. Many of the restaurants mentioned in Kanshoku! are real by the way, so you can visit them yourself.

But on the whole Kanshoku! is not very much different from the other two volumes in the series. Yes, it brings closure to the series, but like always, the link between the case and ramen isn't always clear-cut, and therefore not convincing. When it works, it feels very satisfying, seeing this effect of how a random bit of info on ramen (history) ties to a seemingly unconnected case. But most of the time, the link feels forced. Mirroring can be a very effective device for mysery tales, to serve as a clue to solving the case, as seen in Father Brown or the A Aiichirou stories, but Nishimura wasn't able to get to that quality over the course of the three volumes in the Hakata Detective Case Files series. My thoughts on this series have thus not been changed: worth taking a look at if you're interested in Fukuoka and/or ramen noodles, but otherwise it's not a very consistent mystery series.

Original Japanese title(s): 西村健　『完食！』: 「襲名者」 / 「回り道」 / 「父と子」 / 「中継点」 / 「味の記憶」 / 「旅は道連れ」 / 「倒錯」 / 「最後の絆」

Turnabout Gurgitation

 「食いモンの王様といやァ、今も昔も昨日も明日もラーメンさ」

『逆転裁判４』

"The king of food, is still, has always been and will always be ramen"

"Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney"

Last year, just before I left Kyoto, I wrote a lengthy post on ramen (a noodle soup dish). It had nothing to do with detective fiction. But I like ramen, no I love ramen, so I just wanted to do a write-up on the many, many restaurants in my neighbourhood (which was dubbed a ramen restaurant warzone). And yet, it is still one of the best read posts on this blog. I may be doing something wrong here.

And also about one year ago, I wrote about Nishimura Ken's Yugefuku - Hakata Tantei Jiken File, a short story collection centered around ramen, specifically Hakata tonkotsu (pork bone) ramen. Hashigo ("Food Stand Hopping") is the sequel, and has the same set-up: we follow Fukuoka-based private detective Yuge Takumi (and connoisseur of ramen) as he takes on different kind of cases, from locating missing people to fullfledged murder. The cases, while varied, have one thing in common: Yuge always manages to solve them through his knowledge of... ramen. His pet peeve, "Ramen is like a minature map of human society. There is sadness, a bit of hapiness and every else", isn't just words: the key to every case can always be found in the rich ramen culture. And ramen is also a symbol of the greatest mystery Yuge has to solve: his father, who had a ramen stand, disappeared many years ago and Yuge is determined to find his father.

You know what, I could say that Hashigo is basically the same as Yugefuku - Hakata Tantei Jiken File, only slightly worse, and I'd be done with this review. There is really little to differentiate to Hashigo from its predecessor: sure, we see some characters from the first book here too, and we are slightly closer to solving the mystery behind Yuge's father, but that's all. This Hakata Detective Case Files series is apparently planned as a trilogy, but unless Nishimura Ken manages to pull something amazing in the last volume, the series sure doesn't feel like a properly planned trilogy, as the first and second volume are practically the same...

What Hashigo still does right is being a topographical mystery: Fukuoka, its inhabitants and its many, many ramen restaurants really come alive in these stories, and I say that having lived for a year (in Fukuoka; not a ramen restaurant). A lot of the detective stories I read are set on the main Japanese island of Honshuu, so I always appreciate it when I see Kyuushuu as a setting, and seldom has it been described so lively as here. The same holds for the copious amount of information to be found on ramen here. From the complex history of tonkotsu (pork bone) ramen to how yatai food stands are set up, ramen is everywhere in this volume and you'll learn more about the tasty noodle dish than you'll ever need.

Yugefuku - Hakata Tantei Jiken File was at its best when it managed to connect these anecdotes on ramen to the mystery plot in a meaningful manner. It was something that happened rarely though, with most of the stories only barely relating to ramen anyway, and most of the times that some anecdote served as the key to solving the case, it felt kinda too farfetched. Only once or twice did it really work. And in Hashigo, this happened even less. Ryuuro ("Channel") was the only story that kinda worked, I thought, but that was a spiritual sequel and variation to Ten to En in the previous volume (and definitely my favorite), also dealing with the movements of ramen stand owners. Kusare-en ("An Unseverable Tie") started out good as an impossible crime story where a suspects commits suicide in the questioning room with a gun that shouldn't have been there, but it was a very simple impossible crime, and once again, the anecdote on ramen that served as the hint, wasn't really that neatly connected to the story.

As a book on ramen, Hashigo definitely manages to fill you up, but it leaves you wanting for much, much more as a mystery novel. It is basically a slightly worse version of Yugefuku, which is the one I'd recommend if you want to read a ramen-themed mystery. And beware, you will crave for ramen the moment you start in Hashigo.

Original Japanese title(s): 西村健　『はしご』: 「後継者」 / 「交差点」 / 「風と桶屋」 / 「流路」 / 「腐れ縁」 / 「家業」 / 「出入りの町」 /　「絆ふたたび」

「ご馳走さん」

「ラーメンには人間社会の縮図がある。物悲しさから、小さな幸せまで何もかも」

『ゆげ福　博多探偵事件ファイル』

"Ramen is like a minature map of human society. There is sadness, a bit of hapiness and every else"

 "Yugefuku - The Hakata Detective Case Files"

I recently bought Columbo on DVD and even though I have seen most of the series, there are still episodes I've never seen, so that has been a fun way of spending my time lately. And then it hit me. A Columbo game like that Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo game where you play as the villain would be awesome. Slowly figuring out the perfect crime, and trying to get away from that pesky inspector. And just as you think you have defeated the last boss, he returns with his superspecialawesome attack "just more thing" (unavoidable, instant death). Make it happen!

And now for something completely different. It shouldn't be a secret by now that I love ramen. Especially Hakata's porkbone tonkotsu ramen. And it is probably also known that I love the town of Fukuoka. So you can guess my excitement when I first heard about Nishimura Ken's Yugefuku - Hakata Tantei Jiken File ("Yugefuku - The Hakata Detective Case Files"), a connected short story collection set in Fukuoka with a ramen theme! Yuge Takumi is a private detective operating in Fukuoka with a great love for ramen. His father once made Fukuoka's best ramen, but disappeared one day. Yuge (who is still called Yugefuku by his close friends after his father's ramen stand) is still trying to figure out what happened to his father, while also doing his normal business. Which for some reason or another, is often connected to that wonderful noodle dish.

I guess that this is what Cor Docter would have called a topographical mystery. The local culture of Fukuoka definitely comes alive in this short story collection, with lively descriptions of downtown Fukuoka and descriptions of many (actually existing) ramen restaurants, as well as copious usage of the local dialect. In fact, in the many years I've blogged, I've often talked about how I love 1) food-themed detectives, 2) usage of dialects and other speech patterns in fiction, 3) Fukuoka, so you'd figure that I'd be all over Yugefuku. So what is the 'but'?

Well, major part of it is just the (lack) of true mystery. I should have been warned by the phrase 'hardboiled detective': initially, it just seemed like a nice pun on the habit of al-dente noodles in Hakata ramen. But Yugefuku is indeed not a Great Detective, and the cases he encounters miss the complexities and structuring I so love. Not seldom we are given a story where Yugefuku has one, admittedly, bright idea about a certain case, which ends up like 'that brought me on the trail of that one person who never actually appeared in the story and was never mentioned to, who quickly confessed to the crime'. These cases aren't that baffling and most of the time, I was left unsatisfied. The storyline about Yugefuku's father's disappearence is also not of any real importance.

The way the stories connect to ramen are Yugefuku at his best and worst. When author Nishimura manages to present something good, the concept works. Like a certain little lady who likes to compare everything tot the happenings in St. Mary Mead, Yugefuku has the habit of comparing everything with the macroworld of ramen, from the history of ramen-types to how cooks work and customs like second serving. These insights into the world of ramen are interesting on their own, but they also provide surprising new points of view on the case, which lead to the solution. The story Ten to En ("Points and Circles", as a reference to Matsumoto Seichou's Points and Lines) for example has Yugefuku talking about ramen delivery, which turns out to be the key to the case. The moment you see how the two seemingly unrelated notions are connected, is really fun. But most of the time, the connection is mediocre at best. One story for example starts with an anecdote on the custom of kaedama in Hakata ramen, a second portion of just the noodles. The story itself however is about another meaning of the word kaedama, namely substitute/stand-in. So no real connection with the case on hand.

When the anecdotes on ramen and other Fukuoka customs and the main plot don't connect well, the stories kinda fall apart: they feel like a collection of random plotlines and comments, without forming a whole. There were sadly several times I had to ask myself why a certain subplot or comment was inserted in the story, only for me to find out that they had absolutely nothing to do with the main story. It is padding, which is something I am not looking for in a short story.

The pages is filled with love for ramen though, and you'll guaranteed want to eat a bowl of hot noodles when you read this, but purely from a mystery-reader's point of view, this short story collection is lacking. However, as you can hardly define me as just a person who loves detective fiction, without the above mentioned affection for ramen / Fukuoka / dialects, I'd say that people interested in ramen should definitely try it. When the ramen-mystery mix works, it works and you'll learn a lot about ramen anyway.

Original Japanese title(s): 西村健　『ゆげ福　博多探偵事件ファイル』: 「暖簾わけ」 / 「途上」 / 「点と円」 / 「学習」 / 「風吹きぬ」 / 「裏窓」「悪意 箱」 / 「絆」

『麺類を喰いつくす！』

"And now for something completely different"

"Monty Python's Flying Circus"

Don't worry: you're probably still on the right blog. But no detective stuff today.

Before this was a blog solely focusing on detective fiction, it was just a blog about life in Japan. Which naturally also touched upon food at times. And people might have noticed that I developed a love for ramen while I was in Fukuoka. Even now, nothing beats a bowl of Fukuoka's characteristic Hakata tonkotsu (pork bone) ramen in my opinion, so I had a bit of trouble adjusting when I first arrived here in Kyoto. The standard soups here are mixes of pork bone soup, chicken stock and fish stock, resulting in less stronger taste. On the other hand, they tend to add pork back fat to every bowl and the soup is usually on the thickish (what they call kotteri) side of the spectrum, resulting in somewhat greasy and quite filling ramen.

But on the other hand, I was lucky enough to end up in the Shugakuin neighbourhood of Kyoto, which is right next to Ichijouji, an area also known as ramen street because it probably features the highest density of ramen restaurants in this area of Japan, resulting in a relatively high standard of ramen. The main street of Higashi Ooji, which crosses through Ichijouji ending at Shugakuin is full of restaurants and the branch streets are just as interesting. Note that Ichijoji is known as both ramen street, as well as a ramen gekisenku, an area of fierce ramen competition where weak restaurants will die fast.

And so, in the spirit of and now for something completely different (and because I want to use the food tag again!), an introduction to the ramen restaurants in Ichijouji, Kyoto. Lovers of ramen who are going to visit Kyoto, skip the ramen restaurant floor at Kyoto Station and take the bus to Ichijoji! 

Yokotsuna

The biggest restaurant here, especially as it moved three buildings next door last month, doubling its size. It's a chain restaurant and they serve what I can only describe as a very, very bland pork bone /chicken stock soup. It's not bad, but there are so many better restaurants nearby, with much more interesting tastes than what they serve at Yokotsuna. You should only come here when you can't handle the strong taste of real pork bone tonkotsu soup, or the distinctly thick, kotteri soup of Kyoto. Yokotsuna does serve absolutely delicious black pork gyouza though.

Taizou

Located close to Yokotsuna and quite small with just counter seats. They do feature a very wide variety of ramen though, variating from standard pork bone stock ramen to fish stock ramen. While most of the restaurants in this neighbourhood have soups that consist of a mix of pork bone, chicken and fish stock, I'm pretty sure that Taizou was the only one that served a ramen where fish stock is the main flavor (until Tsurukame's arrival). It's a nice, slightly soury ramen, and quite a difference from what you'd normally get in ramen street, but Taizou's best has to be their Garlic ramen. And Garlic should be written with a capital G, because it's really Garlicky. They add garlic to the soup, and roasted garlic cloves and a mountain of chopped scallions and it's delicious. And incredibly smelly. But oh-so-delicious.

Tsurukame

One of the two new restaurants that opened during the year I was here. I think it opened just after the summer and when I finally decided to go there, I found out it was closed. For a long time. I knew that competition here was fierce, but to close in just two months? It turned they had closed to get the shop redesigned etc., and it finally reopened in February. It's still an immensely small shop with just about ten counter seats, while the kitchen part of the store seems to be almost double the size. They serve a variety of  ramen and I tried their fish stock based ramen, which was a bit expensive for just one bowl, but it did feature a lot of fillings and it tasted great, so I was content. Definitely one to stay in this neighbourhood.

Harada

The other new shop. This one serves Hakata tonkotsu ramen like Ryuu no Suzu, but with relatively high prices for the ramen they serve (the amount of men is rather small, meaning you do want to get another serving), their geographical position with much more direct competition and the not particularly special soup, I can't see this shop going on for long to be honest. The most surprising was when I saw the cook checking the menus himself when someone ordered a set menu: apparently he hadn't memorized his own menus!

Chinyuu

One of the bigger restaurants here and I quite like it! I think they use a chicken stock based soup, with some added fat and soy, but it's a surprisingly taste soup and their men is quite good though. It's a bit of a standard ramen though, but it's done right and Chinyuu is a nice place to visit occasionally because the price of a small ramen is really reasonable and the taste is good.

Enaku

Specializing in tsukemen, this is one restaurant you don't want to miss. It's a bit more near the residential part of the neigbourhood, next to an videogame center, but it's just as important a part of the ramen street as the other restaurants on Higashi Ooji. Their thick, yellow soup is fish/porkbone stock based (with a bit of curry powder it seems) and goes perfectly with their men, which are also thick and yellow, and full of elasticity too. You have the option of both warm and cold men, and an experiment with my partner in dine (who has the habit of ordering the non-optimal choice), resulted in the conclusion that you should always go with the warm men to accompany the soup. After eating all the men, you can ask for a soup-wari, where they add some stock to make the soup less thick. Which is another experience on its own, because the soup changes taste because of the fish-based stock, adding another layer to the dish.

Takayasu

One of the two immensely popular restaurants here. On any given day, it's quite likely to see about 50 persons standing in the line in front of the shop. In the weekends, it can become worse. The main attraction is probably the restaurant's interior, which is nothing like what you'd expect from a ramen restaurant. Sure, chains like Ippuudou also go for a stylish interior, but Takayasu is bright, features chairs with fancy designs and TVs that show old Tom & Jerry cartoons for some sinister reason. I've seen groups consisting of only females eating here, which is a sight you very seldom see in ramen restaurants. Hip and stylish, but how is the ramen? Well, not very interesting. It's a bit like the one at Yokotsuna to be honest, bland and not interesting (challenging?) at all. Takayasu looks quite revolutionary for a ramen restaurant, but its taste is boring. Which is why instead of a photo of their ramen, I added one of their karaage. Which are something to write about, because they are gigantic (compare to the toothpick). They feature delicious juicy chicken meat and there is a bit of curry powder sprinkled on top of them for just that little kick. But they are really big, so order with caution. I went twice to the shop, both times accompanied with a partner in dine, and sharing one plate of three karaage between the two of us was still providing a challenge.

Tentenyuu /  Hirumaya

During the day, the shop is called Hirumaya, at night Tentenyuu. The selection of dishes is different, but I am pretty sure that the cooks are the same. At Hirumaya, their special ramen was fantastic. A bit expensive, but with a great variety of fillings like an egg and even hosotake, something I had never even seen in ramen (I have no idea what it's called in English and I can't seem to be able to find the proper translation...). A slightly thickish pork bone based soup, but you can choose your own type of noodles to go with the dish (thin noodles or wavy noodles), and thick soups always go great with wavy noodles.

Tentenyuu has the strange habit of opening at 19:00, instead of 18:00, which meant I always had troubles visiting it (because I would just go to a restaurant which would open earlier), but I finally managed the restaurant several months later than I had originally planned. And I was a bit disappointed. Their chashu men featured a lot of delicious chashu, but I wasn't a big fan of the soup, which wasn't nearly as tasty as when I ate at Hirumaya. It seemed liked a slightly watered down version, which made it less tasteful. Tentenyuu is way more popular than Hirumaya as far as I know, but I would definitely recommend Hirumaya over Tentenyuu.

Yume wo Katare

One of the two Jirou-kei ramen restaurants. Jirou-kei ramen is almost a genre on its own: as a shop, they operate on a system where customers have to get their chopsticks, towel and spoons themselves, and you're supposed to clean up your counter yourself after you're finished. The ramen themselves are almost monstrous if you have never seen them before: thick noodles, very greasy soups, copious amounts of vegetables and chopped garlic and gigantic slices of chashu. And I really mean gigantic. You don't go to a Jirou-kei restaurant unprepared. An empty stomach is really needed to be able to get all of that through your throat and you might die because of clogged veins during the fight. But it tastes oh-so-good. Yume wo Katare is the more famous of the two Jirou-kei restaurants here and has a lot of shops spread over Japan (and even in the States), though they all feature different names. Their link is in their strangely ambitious names: Yume wo Katare for example means talk about your dreams. This was the first Jirou-kei ramen I ever ate and I liked it quite a lot. But once again, not for the faint of stomach.

Ikedaya

The other Jirou-kei restaurant. They're actually quite similar, so I am not sure why there are so close to each other. I liked the taste of Ikeda a bit more than that of Yume wo Katare though and it always seems full of students whenever I pass by. Except for that one time I visited the shop, when I was the only customer there and the cook suddenly started a conversation with me. I am not sure whether I really wanted to know that he was a hired cook and not the owner of the shop, that he's married (his wife was in his home prefecture) and that he tries his hand at the international exchange markets at times, nor am I sure whether he really wanted to know about the cycling culture in the Netherlands, but he did serve a very fine bowl of Jirou ramen which was enough food and fat for me for more than a day.

Ichijouji Boogie

Another shop specializing in tsukemen, but while Enaku seems to go for a more sophisticated taste, Boogie goes for a healthy mix of pork bone soup with added fat. Which isn't a bad thing! Sure it's a greasy and salty dish, but it tastes wonderful! Not a shop to visit every week, but a shop you should definitely visit if you love pork bone based soups and tsukemen. Also, you get an enormous amount of men for the money. And the music selection, is like the restaurant's name suggest, quite good.

Tenka Gomen / Mugen no Chikara

One of the two shops here that utilizes two formulas: during the afternoon, this shop is called Tenka Gomen, while at night it operates under the name of Mugen no Chikara, even though the cook remains the same. The restaurant is located quite far from the competition, which might explain why there are so few customers every time I passed by. It's definitely not a small shop, as they have a long counter and two tables, so I always wondered about that. Anyway, I first visited on an afternoon, where I was lured by the name of snowwhite ramen, which was exactly what I ordered. And it was white! The soup was a thick, chicken-stock based one, which explained the name. What was even more surprising was that the men were placed on top of the soup fillings (it's usually the other way around), meaning you can't see what's in it. Which was a fun game on its own, as it made you curious to what you would find next time. Visually, but also... tastily... tastewise a fine ramen.

And at night, it turns into something completely different. I passed by it one night and I wasn't that hungry, so I thought I would just go for the standard chuuka soba, which is just another name for ramen. You would expect them to serve their basic, default ramen. What I got was a ramen which looked nothing like ramen. I thought I was being served gyuudon. But beneath the beef, onions and the egg, there really were men. I can really only describe it as a mix between gyuudon and ramen, which isn't a bad thing, but definitely not what you'd expect when you order a chuuka soba. It's very cheap for the volume though and definitely worth a try if you're nearby and need something filling.

Shinshintei

A small shop that's never open when I want it to be open, but it has a very nice atmosphere being run by an old couple. Most of the clients seemed to be regulars and everybody chitchats. Their default ramen is a miso-based ramen and it's definitely worth looking up the actual opening times of Shinshintei to try their ramen. A very rich soup and the bowl is full of fillings like vegetables, meat balls and chashu slices. There also chili flakes in the soup, adding that extra little punch. In my mind, a perfect ramen for in the winter.

Ramen Gundan

Located right next to Shinshintei, but specializing in tsukemen. Another thick chicken/fish stock based soup, but very tasty. What I particularly remember of my visit to Ramen Gundan, beside the somewhat cold reception of the cook, was that the difference between the temperature of the soup and the men was perfect. It's hard to explain, but with tsukemen, you eat the noodles by dipping it in the (thick and hot) soup and them slurp them up (together with some air to cool down the soup). Cold noodles and hot soup is the default form, like at Ichijouji Boogie, but my visit to Enaku had made me realize that it's much better to have warm noodles with thicker soups, as a big difference in temperature cools down the soup too fast. And at Ramen Gundan, this difference was precisely right. The soup cooled down to be eatable, but was warm enough to convey its great taste. Might have been a coincidence (as one should also consider the temperature in the store and the body temperature of the customer), but it was just right that one visit.

Ichizou

Not sure whether this is a new restaurant or not, as it is located a bit seperated from the other restaurants (though in the same street as Ramen Gundan and Shinshintei). The interior is stylish, which was why I was quite surprised to see they served a very thick, and very peppery soup with loads of scallions and grilled meat: I had expected to be a bit like Takayasu, to have a more bland and universal soup. I am personally not a very big fan of the super thick soups so typical of Kyoto (like they serve at the famous Tenka Ippin chain), and the cook threw way too much pepper seeds in the soup, masking all other tastes, but not a bad dish at all.

Butanchu

Specializing in tonkotsu pork bone soup, though not of the Hakata variety. The difference lies in the cooking time and the strength of the fire: with 'regular' tonkotsu pork bone soup, the soup is boiled to extract the basic pork bone taste, leaving you with a brownish soup. With Hakata tonkotsu soup, the soup is boiled with a strong fire for a long, long time, resulting in the fat and collagen from the bones to also melt into the soup. Hakata tonkotsu soup is thus white. Anyway, Butanchu does offer a tonkotsu ramen that is boiled over a long time, but not at a strong fire, resulting in a very different kind of tonkotsu soup. Tastewise, it has that distinct strong pork bone taste I love and I actually love that I can also eat this with wavy noodles, but the salt amount in the soup is incredible. Hours after eating at Butanchu I was still in need of water. Tastewise OK, but you need to buy a two-liter pack of water for the aftermath.

Bishiya

A restaurant serving a porkbone tonkotsu soy soup. The soup is slightly on the thickish side and really tasty, great men and a wide variety of fillings. I was surprised to have been served slightly al dente men, which is usually something you have to ask for. Not sure whether that was the standard at Bishiya or just some mistake on their part (not that it would have mattered, I actually do order al dente as a default if I have the option). The atmosphere in the restaurant is great too, very clean, with a slick design and they have a great sense in music.

Tsuruhashi

A shop with one table and a long counter run by an elderly man and he serves what I can only describe as a decent ramen. I found the soup better than Takayasu and Yokotsuna's soup,  though it does change every day (the man writes down what the soup consists of every day on a board in front of the shop). It's mostly chicken stock based, but it is a troublefree soup that somehow manages to escape the sheer blandness of the two restaurants mentioned before. It's a bit like the ramen you'd expect from restaurants that don't exactly specialize in ramen, but do offer it (like a lot of the Chinese restaurants here). Well, it's a bit more tastier than that, but I wouldn't say that this was a fundamental corner of ramen street.
 
Gokkei

The other super popular ramen restaurant here, together with Takayasu, also easily featuring lines of 50, 60 people in front of the door every day. Which is also because it is super small. They serve a super thick chicken based soup here. And with thick, I mean that your spoon won't sink if you place it on top of the soup. With pieces of chicken in the soup, the dish is really filling and it tastes great, but you have to be a fan of the typical Kyoto thick soups to really appreciate the ramen, I think (which I am not).  And true story: after having this for dinner, I wasn't in need of any food until around dinner time the following day.

Ryuu no Suzu

The most northern restaurant of what should be considered ramen street and probably the smallest one too. There are only about six counter seats and they only serve two dishes: tonkotsu ramen and champon. And with tonkotsu, I mean actual Hakata tonkotsu ramen and none of that tonkotsu with fish /chicken stock added to soften the taste business. They're fast and relatively cheap, but I wouldn't say that you really should visit this shop. Their ramen is OK (I like the chili flakes they add to the soup!) and I was glad I was able to get Hakata ramen nearby during my stay here, but there is no need to go out of you way to come here.

Isao

Is this still part of ramen street? From the most southern point of ramen street part of Higashi Ooji, you'd still need to ride your bike for about five minutes to reach Isao. The reason I visited the small restaurant, located in a residential area, was because it served a tai-based soup. The soup itself tastes very refined, and the hand-cut noodles add a bit of that rustic feeling to the dish, but the filling consist only of a little bit of vegetables and it's a bit little for the price. It's a very light ramen with a distinct taste that is definitely unique, but the cost/performance ratio isn't really optimal.

And I admit, part of the reason I wrote this post is because I don't think I will be able to post something detective-related this week, as I will be moving back to the Netherlands this weekend. And I aim at four posts a month, so this was sort of a cheat post. But hey, sometimes, you just need to write about food.

Original Japanese names: 横綱 / 大蔵 / 鶴かめ / はらだ / 珍遊 / 恵那く / 高安 / 天天有・ひるまや / 夢を語れ / 池田屋 / 一乗寺ブーギー / 天下ご麺・ムゲンノチカラ / 新進亭 / ラーメン軍団 / 壱蔵 / 豚人 / びし屋 / 鶴はし / 極鶏 / 龍の鈴 / 伊佐夫

"Poirot, you really can't do that. It's not playing the game"

「私の趣味。それは他人の冷蔵庫を覗く事。冷蔵庫の中身は持ち主の生活や性格を反映する」

『冷蔵庫探偵』第１巻

"My hobby is peeking inside other people's refrigerators. The contents of a refrigerator reflect its owner's lifestyle and character"

"Refrigerator Detective" 1

Note to self: it is not possible to reproduce all recipes that appear in gourmet manga in real life. Sure, quite some of my cooking actually comes from manga, but I even I could have guessed that a gigantic big bang shumai is not likely to be made in real life. At least not by me. Ah well, another lesson learned...

Like I mentioned in my previous post, I quite like writing about food (how many mystery detective fiction focused blogs have a food tag?).  Having changed my blog into the detective fiction focused blog it currently is, I don't get to write about food that often lately sadly enough. Of course, it's my blog, so I could just bend the rules... If I would do that, I would for example write about Kyoto ramen. The soup seems traditionally to be very thick (kotteri), with (almost surprising) a lot of them being based on chicken. Due to the thickness of the soup, I really don't eat Kyoto ramen that often as it's just too heavy on the stomach. And the noodles themselves ar.... But let's drop this topic for now.

Anyway, food. So when I saw a manga with the interesting title Reizouko Tantei ("Refrigerator Detective"), I just had to pick it up. Because it is probably related to food, right? And detective fiction plus food sounds like a match made in heaven to me! The premise sounded interesting at any rate: protagonist Reiko started her catering company not only to well, have an income, but also because she has a strange hobby. She likes peeking inside other people's refrigerators. Her idea is that you can read people's personality and way of living through that. And she speaks out of experience: if she had checked her own refrigerator better in the past, she would noticed her boyfriend cheating on her a lot earlier. Now she uses her 'profiling' powers to help the police in little cases.

Let's ignore the fact that peeking inside your customers' refrigerators to see how they live is kinda rude. Especially if you're doing it even before a case has happened.

So, like I said, the basic premise is interesting, but to be honest, the first volume quickly showed that it was also a bit too narrow. Most cases resembled each other quite a lot. The cases in Reizouko Tantei are usually not about murder, but about connected lives (of friends, family) slowly drifting apart. The evidence for that is to be found in the refrigerator. A refrigerator with little ingredients is probably used by a person who doesn't often cook at home, while a sweet desert in the refrigerator of a man who doesn't like sweets might indicate a woman in his life. And yes, Reizouko Tantei is mostly a daily life mystery manga (though it does occasionally address murder).

One problem with the story-telling of this manga however is that the reader is never actually shown the contents of the refrigerators until Reiko starts reporting her profiling! Reiko is the only one to peek inside and come up with deductions, while the reader is forced to only nod at Reiko's story. Which makes it a very boring detective manga. I mean, I don't really like daily life mysteries anyway, but at least give me the chance to do something here. Because the stories themselves are not particularly original or shocking.

The art is also very, very generic. The characters don't look bad, but they are certainly also not particularly memorable. Or maybe it's better to say that they're not memorable at all. Their images don't even come up in my mind as I write this. What's even worse is that the food isn't drawn that nice actually! I might be a bit 'spoiled' by reading gourmet manga (where food naturally is a big element of the art and it usually looks quite tasty!) and yes, I am aware that food inside the refrigerator is usually not... prepared yet and often still in packages / wrappings / etc, but even considering that, the lack of details in the art of the food is very disappointing.

Though I guess I wasn't the only one disappointed in the series. After reading the first volume, I discovered that Reizouko Tantei stopped with the third volume, so yeah, it was killed off quite early (luckily?).

So the conclusion? Read Kuitan. The premise might be a bit different, focusing more on prepared food and be a bit more technical rather than the psychological profiling of Reizouko Tantei (incorporating knowledge of food preparation and even chemical workings of ingredients), but it's more fun, a bit more fair (if you know about food) and the food actually looks good. Which is not too surprising as Terasawa Daisuke is formally known for gourmet manga like Mister Ajikko.

By the way, a peek in my refrigerator now would probably result in a reaction like 'why is he hoarding grapefruit juice?'.

Original Japanese title(s): 遠藤彩見（原）　佐藤いづみ（画）（『冷蔵庫探偵』第１巻

『事故現場で弁当を拾い喰い！！』

「王将といえば、 餃子！！餃子と言えば王将！！」
『喰いタン』

"Oushou is gyouza!! Gyouza is Oushou!!"
"Kuitan"

And I welcome thee back, use of the 'food' tag! The tag hadn't been used since I returned from Japan and while food is still in the blog description, the strike-through kinda implies it's not really part of the blog anymore. Which it, usually, indeed isn't. I'll be sure to use it more often when/if I return to Japan. But! There are reasons to why I never deleted the word 'food' from the site description completely. One was because I still expect I'll someday post pictures of ramen bowls and gyouza and stuff again. But it also served as a reminder to myself to discuss one particular series.

I like detective fiction. And I also like food. Especially food in Japan (note that I'm not saying Japanese food; 'cause there is a big difference). And as it happens, there are also quite some detective manga in Japan. And there are a lot more gourmet manga available. About all sorts of food. And thera re really a lot of series. But I'm pretty sure there is only one series that combines both of these themes: Kuitan (a contraction of the two words kuishinbou ("gourmet") and tantei ("detective")). An idea so absolutely ridiculous that it actually works out quite well. Quite tasty (only the manga though; the drama is bad. Avoid!).

Protagonist Takano Seiya is a historical writer by profession. While he's quite popular as a writer, he is horrible at actually keeping deadlines, much to the despair of assistant Kyouko and his publishers. The biggest problem of Takano: he just can't stop eating. He eats everything that tastes good. And quite a bit of it too. Takano shoves away 50 bowls of ramen away as a lunch (which reminds me I once witnessed somebody eating about 70-80 plates of sushi at Sushi Ichiba in Fukuoka. His three friends together probably had only 30-40 plates...). With eating taking a lot of his free time, there just isn't a lot of time left to actually work.

Besides his writing and eating, Takano also often assists the police in criminal investigations. His expertise lies, naturally, in food-related crimes, so you'll often see him called in at murders at restaurants and the like. So how does he use his expertise of food to... detect? Well, did you know that sushi made for delivery is made differently than the ones made in restaurants? Or that ice water works well for gyouza skins? Or that the bikes delivering Chinese food are designed differently from the ones delivering udon? Or that if you boil ramen together with udon, the taste of the udon will suffer from it? Need fingerprints? They might be hidden within a cooked egg! You'd be surprised how much clues are left in food!

Takano's knowledge of all the ingredients of a dish, how people prepare the food, how restaurants work all help him in solving cases ranging from murders, but also theft and in Conan-like hostage situations. Conan might use his wristwatch to knockout a suspect, but nobody but Takano can use a Cup Noodle to disarm a suspect. After which he eats the rest of the noodles. Don't be surprised if Takano 'accidently' eats the food left at a murder crime scene either: you should never let good food go to waste and dead people usually don't eat anymore. And like I said, you'd be surprised how much can be detected from looking at what and how someone ate right before he died. In detective fiction, food is usually only investigated for poison, but how often do you see food being used for alibi tricks?

Experienced detective readers might be trained experts of recognizing locked room tricks, alibi tricks, the workings of rigor mortis and know precisely which poisons taste bitter and which are odorless and how effective they are, in short, they might know a lot about things most of them won't see in their everyday life. Yet, it's not nearly as entertaining and down-to-earth as the food theme in Kuitan. I am pretty sure I'll come across gyouza more often than cyanide. At least, I hope so. While a lot of the tricks and explanations rely on semi-obscure information, it's always very interesting and often actually applicable to real-life. The series often feels more like a gourmet manga with a detective twist, rather than a detective manga with a gourmet twist, but I think it's a really fun series for people interested in a) detective manga, b) food (Japanese food culture) and c) both.

And it's just totally awesome to have actually tasteful pictures in a detective manga, rather than the bloody chopped up corpses and stuff. You really shouldn't read this on an empty stomach.

Of course, with gourmet manga (and detective manga) not doing it particularly well outside of Japan (the same with sports manga), I doubt that Kuitan will make the jump to a western country.

Original Japanese title(s): 寺沢大介 『喰いタン』

「科学で証明できない事はサッパリ理解不能なくせに」

「えー、缶ジュースの自動販売機、どうしても欲しいものが2つ有ったとします。ホットコーヒーと烏 龍茶。どっちを飲もうかって迷ってしまう時って有りますよね。そういう時はですねこうやって2つの ボタンを同時に押す。するとですね、無意識のうちに本当に欲しい方のボタンを先に押してしまうって 言うんですが、あー、まあ御試しください。えー、二者択一と言えば･･･。」
『古畑任三郎：　赤か、青か』

"Uuhm, pretend you are near a vending machine and there are two things you want. Hot coffee or Oolong tea. There are times when you are in doubt about what to drink, right? At such a time, press the two buttons like this simultaneously. They say that by doing this you'll push the button of what you want the most unconciously first, but uhm, please try it out. Talking about choosing between two alternatives..."
"Furuhata Ninzaburou: Red or blue?"

Gyakuten Kenji was awesome. Should have spread the playtime a little bit perhaps. But in other news, little to report. I remember cakes that were no lie, more karaoke, delicious chirashi zushi (but for the real fish-y deal, nigirizushi is still the best), and safely leaving the barber without other hair colors, perms, extensions and that kind of stuff. I was content.

But as I kinda lost the motivation to learn for my exam next week at the moment, I'll randomly talk about Japanese detective literature. Well, to be precise, the more interesting stuff I've read till now. Most of this is just a self-note, as I'll be using this literature somehow when I'll study in Fukuoka later this year and have to write about Japanese detectives. Once again, caveat lector.

1) Miyanaga Akihiko (editor). 2008. Bokutachi no suki na Kindaichi Kousuke ("The Kindaichi Kousuke we love"). Tokyo: Takarajimasha.

Neither magazine nor book, it is the wonderful mook. I didn't invent that word. Anyway, this mook is a guide on the famous fictional detective Kindaichi Kousuke. Dressed in a shabby kimono, a little hat on his head, a scratching hand beneath that hat, Kindaichi is the symbol for Japanese detectives. Japanese detectives are abroad known for the horror influences (fountains of blood, a myriad of mutilations of the body), strange motives/themes in the stories and the Kindaichi stories are the origin of all this (together with Edogawa Rampo's works). Got similar mooks on works of Edogawa Rampo and Higashino Keigo too.

I recommend the 1976 hit movie Inugamike no Ichizoku ("The Inugami Family"), probably the most famous of all Kindaichi Kousuke stories which set the standard for all following Japanese detectives. Great movie (I love the ending song, "Ballad of Love") and it made an excellent subject for the final paper for the Japanese movies course at Leiden.

2) Arisugawa, Alice; Yasui, Toshio. 2008. Misshitsu Nyuumon! - A Guide to Sealed-Room Cases!. Tokyo: Media Factory.

A very geeky and interesting book by famous detective writer Arisugawa Arisu and an architect. The book is written like a dialogue between the two, in which they discuss the variaties of locked room mysteries, which reminds me very much of Carr's fantastic chapter on locked room mysteries ("The Locked Room Lecture") in the evenly fantastic The Hollow Man. Afterwards, the two actually discuss how to construct locked rooms from an architects view. You'd almost think they're really planning a murder.

I actually once tried to construct my own locked room in my room here in Japan. Being in such a small room just begs for it. But it's difficult. Being on the ninth floor kinda eliminates a clean escape through the window (unless I climb into the room of my neighbour). I'll probably need more strings. And rubber bands.

3) Setagaya Trick Kenkyuukai. 1995. Kindaichi Shounen no Suiri Miss ("The Deductions Misses of Young Kindaichi"). Tokyo: Data House.

This is even geekier, as this is a book that a) looks for mistakes made in the stories of the detective comic book series Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo ("The Case Files of Young Kindaichi") and b) actually tries to find solutions / explanations for those mistakes. I like my detectives, but not to that extent. There are also similarly named books for the Detective Conan series. Detectives, even comics, are very serious business here.

It also kinda reminds me of Nikaidou Reito's "'Honjin Satsujin Jiken' no Satsujin" ("The Murder of 'The Murder in the Mansion'), where someone discovers a flaw in the first story of Kindaichi Kousuke and uses it to commit another murder. Yes, modern writers of classic detectives are often amongst the biggest fans of classic detectives.

I still have a lot (a lot!) of books here with real criticism on detectives, lots of the Japanese detective classics (c.f. with "our" The Murder on Roger Ackroyd, Murder on the Orient Express etc.) and semi interesting books. Still too much to read here. Kinda worrying about what to send back home, as I'll probably need a lot of these books in Fukuoka again, so to send back books from Japan to the Netherlands to take back in Japan is kinda inefficient. I could leave them here, but then I'll not be able to read them during the summer....

"Talking about choosing between two alternatives..."