Not coincidentally, after my anime buddy and I had watched two more episodes from the appetizing series "Ramen Daisuki Koizumi-san"（ラーメン大好き小泉さん...Ms. Koizumi Loves Ramen Noodles）, the two of us took off in the car to the newest ramen restaurant in Toronto in the North York area of town.
Supposedly, Konjiki was brought to life in Tokyo where it won a number of accolades in 2016, and so the Toronto branch was quickly constructed. Despite it getting its big attention right now, turnover was pretty brisk when we got there on Sunday evening so we only had to wait 15 minutes before getting our places at the table. We had the Konjiki signature Clam Broth Ramen which you see at the top there. Not too bad but my buddy wasn't too impressed with it; he said he would definitely stick with regular tonkotsu. I was fine with it. I just saw it as noodles placed in clear soup stock.
The karaage and gyoza were fine side dishes.
Doing another referral here but I may have also stated that there haven't been any runaway earworm hits among the anison so far into this year. Still, a lot of them have become quite comfortable to my own ears over the past several weeks. That has been the case with the ending theme for "Ramen Daisuki Koizumi-san", "LOVE MEN HOLIC" by pop-rock singer Shiena Nishizawa（西沢幸奏）. And for that matter, I've found the ending credits to the show very clever as the characters are placed in famous scenes from ramen commercials over the decades.
Her 5th single since debuting in 2015, Nishizawa gives her own tribute to ramen in blistering fashion. Just makes viewers want to rush off to the nearest ramen-ya even faster. The singer wrote the lyrics while WEST GROUND took care of the music. "LOVE MEN HOLIC" was released in February and peaked at No. 48.
Hello J-Canuck!
ReplyDeleteNice post! I'm also watching "Ramen Daisuki Koizumi-san". I actually enjoy more the opening because of the visual effects and the actual song, but I also found clever the using of references from commercials to animate the ending sequence.
The anime makes me want to eat ramen as well, but I'm allergic to fish and most broths include fish extract. That's also one of my hurdles to overcome before visiting Japan. But I did eat some ramen unaware of what it contained, lol. It didn't trigger my allergy and the taste was unforgettable.
Hello, Joana!
DeleteThanks very much. I do love that opening credit sequence...I can only imagine the amount of ramen the animators had to go through to get that up. I have another friend and his wife who have been watching "Koizumi-san", and the wife isn't usually an anime viewer, but they have also gotten the urge to either head for a ramen shop (there are two in their neighbourhood) or make some of their own.
I hear you about allergies. One of my oldest friends can't have any seafood and my niece is allergic to peanuts. One has to be careful and do research on ramen restaurants since although there are many that stick with just pork bones to make that tonkotsu soup, some cooks use a blend of pork and fish. When I was living there, there was one major franchise which was selling vegetarian ramen which only used stock made from vegetables. I've never tried it myself but if you do get to Japan someday, you do have options!