{"id":547,"date":"2006-09-25T15:12:49","date_gmt":"2006-09-25T15:12:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/?p=547"},"modified":"2006-09-25T15:12:49","modified_gmt":"2006-09-25T15:12:49","slug":"himawari_ramen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/himawari_ramen\/","title":{"rendered":"Himawari Ramen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>San Mateo (just south of SFO on da 101) is the Bay Area&#8217;s epicentre of ramen.  Most, if not all of the shops with &#8220;good ramen&#8221; are all here.<br \/>\nThe old standard bearer is Santa Ramen.  And with visiting Santa, the old rules still apply.  &#8220;<strong>Leave San Francisco at 1600 for dinner of stewed pork ramen at 1800.<\/strong>&#8221;<br \/>\nSometimes that&#8217;s impractical, even for good ramen (unless you are in Shinjuku waiting at <a href=\"archives\/2003\/11\/lunch.html\">Men-ya Musashi<\/a>).  We (me and my flatmate and his fren) got to Santa at 1845 and saw the 60 minute long queue.  We (collectively) said &#8220;screw it&#8221; and drove back to downtown San Mateo and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shichiroku.com\/ramen-himawari.htm\">Himawari Ramen<\/a> on 2nd Avenue.<br \/>\nHimawari is a newer player on the ramen block and both Santa and Himawari have their detractors and defenders.  They are a younger group of people running the restaurant and it shows in the decor and menu choices.  Santa is in an old store of some sort and the menu has the basic ramen dishes, appetizers and beer, Himawari has a modern Japanese design and has shochu cocktails in addition to a long sake list and different appetizers.  Think Shitamachi versus Daikanyama and you&#8217;ll get the idea.<br \/>\nI had a Calpico-hi, a thirst quenching beverage made from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.calpis.net\/\">Calpico<\/a> and shochu.  Yum.  Hic.  This got me thinking.  I have <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Shochu\">shochu<\/a> at home.  I also have <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pocari_Sweat\">Pocari Sweat<\/a>.  Put the two together&#8230;.!<br \/>\nWAHAHAHAH!  Ahem&#8230;time for appetiser.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.walking-ixus.net\/blog\/photos\/himawarisnack.html\" onclick=\"window.open('http:\/\/www.walking-ixus.net\/blog\/photos\/himawarisnack.html','popup','width=640,height=480,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0'); return false\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.walking-ixus.net\/blog\/photos\/himawarisnack-thumb.jpg?resize=320%2C240\" width=\"320\" height=\"240\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<em>It&#8217;s pork that&#8217;s fried.  I forgot the name and those aren&#8217;t my hashi in the pic! <\/em><br \/>\nThe meal of the evening all around was tonkotsu ramen (AKA Kyushu-men).<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.walking-ixus.net\/blog\/photos\/himawariramen.html\" onclick=\"window.open('http:\/\/www.walking-ixus.net\/blog\/photos\/himawariramen.html','popup','width=640,height=480,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0'); return false\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.walking-ixus.net\/blog\/photos\/himawariramen-thumb.jpg?resize=320%2C240\" width=\"320\" height=\"240\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<em>It&#8217;s art, I tell ya!  ART! <\/em><br \/>\nHimawari uses thinner ramen than Santa so the ramen has a satisfying &#8220;snap&#8221; when you bite into them.  The broth isn&#8217;t quite as rich as Santa&#8217;s but is still flavorful.  It could have been a bit hotter when it got to the table, but there were three orders and I was busy taking pictures&#8230;<br \/>\nAll in all, a worthy competitior to Santa and now I&#8217;ve got two places I can go to for my ramen fix!<br \/>\n<em>Himawari<br \/>\n202 2nd Avenue<br \/>\nSan Mateo CA 94401<br \/>\n650-375-1005<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>San Mateo (just south of SFO on da 101) is the Bay Area&#8217;s epicentre of ramen. Most, if not all of the shops with &#8220;good ramen&#8221; are all here. The old standard bearer is Santa Ramen. And with visiting Santa, the old rules still apply. &#8220;Leave San Francisco at 1600 for dinner of stewed pork &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/himawari_ramen\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Himawari Ramen&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-steamy-ramen-goodness"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2mgIi-8P","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}