Personally, I think, “not enough coffee”!
I mean, this is how I am after I take a shower!!
New mall ramen…
This is always a welcome sight in my ramen-scarce area. This is Majikku Ramen in Daly City. It’s in that mall on Skyline where Ranch 99 and the KFC is. If you’re Asian and you live in San Francisco, chances are you know where this is and can get here blindfolded.
New Ramen shop! Sorta of in my area…
The sign above usually means, “come in and eat”. So I went this evening.
It was pretty busy because it was dinner time
The place had chill out lounge music which would be great for the kind of bars I like to frequent, but even though it’s not really ramen shop music, it worked with the decor which is very modern-y and new. That’s fine since this place has been open for only a few months.
Many things can make or break a ramen shop besides the actual food. The ramen is of course, the reason you go to a ramen shop but the service, the variety of food (or lack thereof) and the atmosphere can also make a place worthwhile.
Or it can break a place.
First the good stuff. Decent tonkotsu broth. Good flavor without the MSG hangover.
Here’s another added (and rare) feature here. Cha siu slices that are rich, flavourful and hella tender! The noodles were decently springy. I think I was here on a good night.
Makes your mouth water, dun it?
Before the ramen showed up, ordered some chicken yakatori and wasabi chicken from the Robata-Yaki menu. Both very good and worthy of piss alley in Shinjuku.
Great with beer!
Now the not so great. The miso ramen was extremely oversalted to the point of causing a salt/msg headache. Canned bamboo shoots in both bowls were rubbery and limp. But at least the noodles and cha siu kept their ramen-y goodness. Both bowls also came out not as hot as I’d like. My miso ramen friend didn’t have problems with the warmth of the bowl so that may be a matter of personal preference.
The bowl looks good…and the cha siu still rox!
Now so far, we have good appetizers and passable ramen. Before I continue, I should mention that they have lots of free parking. Here’s where the place falls flat on its face. The service is bad. It’s the kind of service that you’d expect in a typical Chinese restaurant here. No, I’ll go further than that. It genuinely seemed like they were very disinterested in doing their jobs. There was no greeting from the waitstaff when we signed in and waited for our wall-facing counter seat. Service was incredibly slow despite the fact it was the dinner hour.
Come here if you’ve got the craving for ramen/izakaya food. Just don’t expect the experience and treatment that you’d usually get from one of these places. Order simply, eat and leave. Also interesting…there were no Japanese diners or staff inside…
Majikku Ramen
240 Skyline Plaza
Daly City CA 94015
650-756-2988
Think I’ll let him pass…
Hmmm. If I see this bike on the road, best to let it pass…
Still life from Bed Supperclub
From my last night in BKK…twas Model’s Night!!
Heartbreak and laughter
Heartbreak that many ramen fans in the “bay area” know all too well…
You MUST MUST get to Santa Ramen before they open at 1730 to join the queue! Otherwise, you’ll never be able to taste the ultimate decadence of stewed pork and instead you’ll have to settle for the plain old decadence of tonkotsu cha-siu ramen instead.
It’s good stuff, but it’s not the good GOOD stuff…
There are noodles down there, lurking under the broth.
In the interest of “fair and balanced” ramen blogging, here’s an order of miso ramen
Santa DOES have a sense of humor, as evidenced by the sign below.
Guess too many people were asking stupid questions so they had to put up a sign. Bet they’re still fielding this stupid question, probably asked by stupid people that don’t read…
WAHAHAHAHAHAH
Santa’s moving to just south of the 92 on El Camino Real. That means easier parking and a Nijiya Market to buy stuff in after your large helping of steam ramen goodness! They’re not sure about when yet, but your roving correspondent visited the site and saw stockpots the size of small Tokyo apartments in the front, so they may be opening up before the end of the year…
Lodging in BKK
One of the most oft-repeated questions I get about my travels is “how do you afford it”? Here’s the answer, one of the Jedi secrets. Ready? Here it comes…
I try to make sure that all my other costs don’t exceed the cost of my airplane ticket.
Generally, I do much of my travel off-season so tickets are cheaper and the travel budget gets smaller. I use that figure as a benchmark to budget. And yes, there’s method to the madness.
My normal SOP is to stay at hostels. They’re cheap, they often have character and you can meet fellow travelers and make new friends for hanging out. Now the caveat is knowing which hostels are great and which ones inspired horror movies. Hint: You don’t want to stay in the latter. Generally all the hostels I’ve blogged about are in the former category although I’ve stayed in some dives that deserved mention and warning about.
So my experience staying at HI-Sukhumvit would be in the “great” category. The place is a 5 minute trudge from the Thong Lo Skytrain, through a night market and then another 1/2 block. It’s a great location for exploring the city because many of the sights are within striking distance of the Skytrain or the MRT. If you arrive at night, give yourself a little more time as you’ll surrender to the sights and smells and wind up eating.
The patio in front of the hostel
The hostel is all of a 5 story building, with a lounge area and laundry facilities on the roof. They have both private rooms and dorms. The dorms have the firmest (that means it’s great!) mattresses I’ve ever been on in a hostel AND great air-con. The common bathrooms are almost Japanese in cleanliness.
View of the Rama IX bridge from the hostel roof
Firm beds in a dorm room! I like!
On the last two nights in BKK, I decided to treat myself (as do most flashpackers) to a hotel stay. BKK has very nice hotels and due to the exchange rate, they’re affordable. Let’s put it this way. For the price of a 1 star in Manhattan, I can stay at a 4 star boutique hotel. Which is what I did.
No more bunk beds and loud sleepers!
Dream Hotel BKK has a sister location in Manhattan that costs three times as much. The BKK one is a better deal and has better service. They have free wi-fi and the rooms were comfortable, but it wasn’t the essence of travel where you meet people and hang out and drink beer on the roof until 0400. This hotel, however, hit the perfect spot for decompressing before my return to “the world” two days later.
The desk and the flat screen HD TV with satellite and DVD player
My own can! WAHAHAHAHAH
Dream is located about 10 minutes walk from Asok Skytrain and the Sukumvit MRT stop; half of the walk is down Sukhumvit Road where you pass a McDonald’s, the Westin and the Sheraton. Twas not a bad location either.
What the Borg did after they were discharged…
HI-Sukhumvit
23 Sukhumvit Soi 38,
Phra Khanong, Khlong Toei,
Bangkok 10110, Thailand
+66(0) 2 391-9338
http://www.hisukhumvit.com
Dream BKK
10 Sukhumvit Soi 15
Klongtoey Nua, Wattana,
Bangkok 10110, Thailand
+66(0) 2 254-8500
http://www.dreambkk.com
BKK Icons
A preview of what’s to come. I’m waaay too tired to do a proper post now. More later!
Wat Po, the reclining Buddha. He’s relaxing. I’m sleeping!
Aussie legs and others at the Bed Supperclub
Self portrait in BKK MRT
You have to REALLLY want to see it….
The sights on the MTR (yay advertising!)
So what exactly is being advertised? Think I may buy…
The price of tradition
The price of MY traditions tonight was sweating through my clothes. Not a pretty sight. Nope. No way. Let’s put it this way. I went to the gym to cool off. And also fit in a workout. And take a loooong shower.
Yeah, you’ve seen this before. But this is how it looks when it’s 33C outside and shot from the lower deck!
My traditional “first night” things. Do the seksiest commute EVER and get some wonderful comfort food.
This is where to eat
This is WHAT to eat
It was an ordeal walking from the new Central Pier (which has morphed into a very tacky and dead mall) to the part of Central where Tsim Chai Kee is. And interestingly enough, many of the buildings that the elevated skyway ends and where people usually walk through for some aircon relief were CLOSED. Closed at 2000. I guess they’re afraid that people will enjoy their aircon too much so they close the buildings down. Go figure.
Excessive heat and humidity does things to people. Coming off the MTR at TST, I witnessed an altercation between two men, one fat guy screaming at another not so fat guy as he got off the train. There was a lot of woofing between the two, said woofing getting louder as guy #2 was getting further away from guy #1 by riding up the escalator. The more space between the two, the louder they got. They should have just gotten the hint by the copious laughter all around them, shut up and threw down. Probably ain’t gonna happen.
Heeey S-A! Hope it all works out and you didn’t fall asleep in class…