Saturday: Too much delicious lunch

I've been having a craving for ramen for the past few weeks, and decided today that I was going to go out and get some.  My destination of choice was Tenkaippin Ramen.  I think it showed up in my RSS feed of Honolulu food stuff recently, so that probably helped.  It's somewhat interesting that I'd seen piles of commercials for this place before ever trying it.  The Ultimate Japan show is kind of interesting, with Hawaiian Dad, Japanese Wife, and Their Son travelling around Japan eating things and seeing other things.  I never realized it until visiting Tenkaippin, but they own the ramen place as well as hosting a travel show.

They also have the show on constantly in the restaurant.

 I chose Set C, with the kotteri ramen.  I don't know that there's any way to describe this perfectly.  It's a very thick and rich chicken broth, almost to the point of being a gravy.  It serves as a wonderful example of the definition of "umami."  Broth, noodles, bamboo shoots (which I don't usually like much, but when they've soaked up the kotteri broth they're wonderful), pork slice, and green onions.

 Set C comes with fried chicken.  It has a faint garlic flavor, and is crispier and more western style than a karaage would be.  It comes with a cabbage salad of some sort, which has magic dressing.  Again, I don't really like cabbage, but the magic dressing makes it tasty and enjoyable.

I also got a side of gyoza, because I love gyoza.  These were also good, but combined with everything else, probably made lunch a bit excessive.  I'm pretty sure I'm done with food for the day.

Somehow I forgot to take a picture of the gyoza.

Tenkaippin is wonderful, and I think I really need to put it in as a regular place.  The parking is a bit tricky (they share a small lot with a dozen other places including a Jamba Juice and Starbucks), but it seems to have decent turnover.  Then again, I was there at 3pm on a saturday, so I wasn't really in the main rush.