A note on the words: Yokohama Chinatown is the largest Chinatown in Japan, a dense grid of restaurants and shops. Char siu is Cantonese barbecued pork, rimmed red from its marinade. Yodare-dori, literally “drool chicken,” is a Sichuan cold dish of poached chicken under a chili-and-sesame sauce, and laziji is chicken fried and tossed through a heap of dried chilies. Tonporo is the Japanese reading of dongpo rou, pork belly braised in soy until it melts; kakuni is its Japanese cousin. Chinjao rosu is shredded beef stir-fried with green peppers and bamboo shoot. Xiaolongbao are the small steamed dumplings that hold hot soup inside. Yuba is the delicate skin that forms on simmering soy milk, edamame are young green soybeans, and water spinach is the hollow-stemmed green the Japanese call kuushinsai. Sansho is the Japanese pepper whose numbing tingle runs through mapo tofu, and tianmianjiang is the sweet dark bean paste you spread inside a Peking duck wrapper.
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Ichiraku on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
Hey, this is Hangover Meshi. So, Yokohama again on this day as well. And of course, once the errands were done, off to Yokohama Chinatown! While I was browsing about wondering where to eat this time, I spotted a Chinese restaurant called “Ichiraku” advertising “established in Showa 2” — 1927 — which looks like it has a great deal of history behind it! I went straight in and asked whether they could seat us without a reservation: they could! And so dinner was to be had at Ichiraku!
We were shown to the big room on the second floor!
Right — once again, rather than a course, we go with picking out whatever we feel like eating.
Something I’ve come to think, going to Chinese restaurants here and there lately: if you’re at a Chinese place with a decent number of people, ordering the things you want to eat rather than a set course may well be the better way ^^
First a beer, and then we start picking at the appetizers.
I’d been told this place is famous for its char siu, and sure enough it came with the appetizer trio we ordered! First bite of the char siu: delicious! They grill it over charcoal, apparently, so there’s a toastiness to it, and although char siu with that red rim has always struck me as being on the dry side, not here! Very juicy and very good. Then there’s the chilled jellyfish and the steamed chicken with scallion sauce, I think. A very good set of appetizers. Goes extremely well with beer.
You really can’t start without it, so I ordered the yodare-dori. The sauce has some heat to it but the savory depth is strong and it’s delicious — and the touch of sourness and sweetness is good too. The chicken is plump and juicy and I feel it could carry a bowl of rice on its own. At the very least, that sauce alone could do it! Here I brought in a Harbin beer. The thin sort of beer you often find around Asia.
And then the seasonal recommendation! Spring rolls of snow crab, yuba and edamame. Crisply fried spring rolls! Crab and edamame turn out to go together rather well, lol
This must be what they call laziji. I do love this. Chicken wearing the heat of dried chilies — how good it is. Pair it with beer and it’s unbeatable. There are two kinds of chili in there, fat ones and slim ones, so maybe that’s where the depth of the heat comes from?
The crisp coating is a lighter kind of crispness than a spring roll’s, and the flavor of all that shrimp packed inside is irresistible. Ketchup had been set out, and with ketchup it feels like a snack; without it, it feels like Chinese food — the impression changes considerably, which is interesting ^^
This is the house specialty, tonporo.
It’s rather like kakuni, but because the sauce is soy-based this version may be a little cleaner. The sauce itself isn’t all that sweet, and precisely because of that the sweetness of the pork itself feels emphasized. Meltingly tender and delicious!
The little bite of pepper suits the salt-based seasoning perfectly.
A mapo tofu with a good kick of chili oil and sansho. But within that heat you can feel sweetness and savory depth, which is just what you’d hope for. Delicious!
A Dragon Highball at this point ^^
We’re in Chinatown after all, so somehow you do end up wanting Peking duck.
Crisp Peking duck skin on top of a shrimp cracker. It’s the make-it-yourself kind: peel off one wrapper, add scallion and cucumber, spread on the tianmianjiang, lay on a piece of Peking duck. Roll it up neatly and you get crisp, toasty skin against the freshness of the scallion and cucumber! Delicious
So — once again we held one of those sessions where you order a la carte and eat as much of whatever you want as you like, and the satisfaction is high! Established in Showa 2, and a good place where you can taste good old-fashioned Chinese cooking at reasonable prices. I actually head out to Minato Mirai for events fairly often, and I’ve been reminded that coming back as far as Motomachi, eating Chinese in Chinatown and then going home is a very solid plan indeed! I’d like to drop in bit by bit and work my way around the Chinese restaurants here!
Ichiraku (Chinese / Nihon-odori Station, Motomachi-Chukagai Station, Ishikawacho Station)
Tabelog dinner rating ★★★☆☆ 3.6
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
