Livin' the McDream: Hiroshima - Eats & Drinks (It's a Trip Part 4.2)

YUM! Had some pretty great foods today and found a nice hole in the wall...literally a hole in a wall up a set of stairs. All of these places are marked on the map at the end of Part 4.0.

Lunch was at a restaurant called Bakudanya (http://www.bakudanya.net/) and we had the famous Hiroshima tsukemen. Tsukemen means "dipping noodles." The noodles are served separately from a bowl of broth which in the case of the Hiroshima specialty is cold. The broth is a soy based soup and you have to choose a level of spiciness (1-20) when you order. The noodles also come with cold boiled cabbage, pork, shredded cucumber, leek and sesame seeds.

Of course it couldn't be EASY for us to just go and have a great lunch...I had the address of the restaurant that supposedly invented these noodles, obviously we wanted the original. Or should I say, I wanted to original. The idea of cold noodles and cold broth was not exactly appealing in Keenan's mind. So we walked about 1/2 mile from our hotel to where this restaurant was located. It was closed, there was construction happening on the sidewalk directly in front of it. Crap. I looked up another place that served tsukemen. We walked there, closed. Crap. Finally, we ended up back near our hotel and noticed that right down the street was a place with a picture of tsukemen on the sign outside. Hey, it may not be the original, but we're still trying it, right?

Well, after this trip when I was trying to find out the name of the place I found out that it's part of a chain, the same chain as the "original," haha, Bakudanya has a bunch of locations! Unfortunately we can't read Japanese so at the time we had no idea! It's kinda funny, but also not funny knowing that the wasted time would have been well spent at Miyajima as we may have gotten there in time to hike Mt. Misen. Oh well! As I said in the last post, missing the hike gives us a reason to go back someday...along with these noodles because they were delicious! Even the skeptic agreed!

GPS coordinates of the original Hiroshima tsukemen shop: 34.387255, 132.460150

GPS coordinates of the location we ended up at: 34.391534, 132.462495

We ordered the top option.

How to eat Hiroshima Tsukemen.
1. Let's challenge extreme your spicy level!
2. Add plenty sesame on top of noodle!
3. Then dip the noodle into the sauce, and slurp them with max sauce!
4. Add the extra spicy at any time you like!

Yummy! All my leeks ended up on a different plate...

We even got cool bibs!

Outside shot I took later that night.

After lunch we visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and Museum and Miyajima. Those can be read about at Part 4.1 and Part 4.0. We came back to central Hiroshima to swing by our hotel and then head out to dinner.
Another famous Hiroshima food is okonomiyaki, common referred to as a Japanese pancake, but really nothing like a pancake. I've written about these before when we visited a restaurant near Misawa that serves them, however, Hiroshima style okonomiyaki is a bit different. What we had before was Osaka style where all the ingredients are mixed together and then cooked. Hiroshima style the ingredients are layered rather than mixed. Lucky for us dinner didn't involve too much wandering. Okonomimura is "Okonomiyaki Village," a section of a building with 3 floors dedicated to 26 tiny restaurants all serving okonomiyaki. Seems a little strange to have a bunch of competing restaurants all together, but it's not the first time we've seen this in Japan...remember Ramen Alley in Sapporo? Somehow it works, every place has their "specialty" and having them together as an attraction draws tourists! This place was about 1 1/2 blocks from our hotel. Once you see the big sign above the street you have to follow little signs to an elevator and take that to either the 2nd, 3rd or 4th floor. Then it's just a matter of picking a place to sit down and order! We took a stroll around each level, looked a little bit at the restaurant descriptions on the website (http://www.okonomimura.jp/foreign/english.html) and finally settled on our first stop, Hirochan, on the 3rd floor. We shared one okonomiyaki at each place so we could try a couple.
GPS coordinates: 34.391259, 132.461900

Hirochan English menu, we had the No. 1.
Standard-yaki
"No. 1 is the most orthodox okonomiyaki. Bake across
fabric eggs and pork and bean sprouts and cabbage. You
can choose either ["Udon" or "Soba"] noodles to put in."
¥810 + beers.

Hirochan - "Our pleasant restaurant has a bright interior where
customers strike up lively conversation with each other.
Overseas customers often come here to eat."

Second stop was Kyuchan on the 4th floor. We chose this one because we saw that they offered a spicy option. They had a sauce that was slightly spicy, but not much of a difference. We had something very similar to what we had a Hirochan, but we added cheese. I didn't like it as much, they used a lot more bonito flakes which I don't care for...

Kyuchan - "Our distinction is our wide spectrum of
meals – plain, spicy, Western, and more – offering diners
a diversity of flavors to experience."

How to make Hiroshima style okonomiyaki:

1. Pour the flour based batter.

2. Sprinkle with bonito flakes (dried fish flakes). This step
made me not enjoy this restaurant's version as much.
They used too much for my tastes!

3. Place a heap of cabbage on the batter and top
with other ingredients such as bean sprouts.

4. Top vegetables with meat and/or seafood.

5. Flip over the entire thing and add noodles on the griddle.

6. Place on top of the noodles.

7. Fry egg and place other ingredients on top.

8. Flip over and top with okonomiyaki sauce, dried seaweed,
more dried fish flakes and sometimes mayo,
pickled ginger, green onions, etc.

We had the Basic Okonomiyaki (pork, vegetable, egg)
with chinese noodles and we added cheese. ¥972 + beers.

The group that ordered the ones I photographed.

Time to check out a couple of Hiroshima's bars! First was Tropical Bar Revolucion. We didn't stay long at this place, but there were some friendly locals that we enjoyed talking to. It was also located on the 8th floor of a building so we got to check out the view of the streets below. No cover charge. Located on Nagarekawa-dori which is the main entertainment street in Hiroshima. Hundreds of bars/restaurants in the area.
GPS coordinates: 34.390790, 132.463704

Not too far away was MAC bar. Supposedly the oldest bar in central Hiroshima. Literally a hole in the wall...up a metal staircase and through a door on the side of the building. This place had a good atmosphere, there was a small group when we got there and another small group that came in later, but for the most part it was us plus 2-3 others. There were thousands of CD's on the wall and we could request pretty much any American classic rock song and they'd play it for us. Sat at the bar drinking beers, jamming out with our air guitars and singing along. We had a GREAT time here! The bartender was very friendly and spoke English really well. Our tab was reasonable too! Check it out if you're in the area!
GPS coordinates: 34.390422, 132.463283