Disneyland Mitsuwa is the most magical place on Earth—well, in the Atlantic Northeast at the very least. Moving from San Francisco to Philadelphia, and away from the Japanese markets, in one fell swoop, I was instantly severed from the lifeblood of my culinary heart. Sure, I have learned to fill in the gaps with the Vietnamese , Thai and Chinese markets which are prevalent here, finding dashi at one, enoki at another, meats at the Korean market. However, they just can not compare to a proper Japanese market when you are looking for Japanese (duh) ingredients. Enter Mitsuwa.

I walked in the side door this time to be greeted with a vast sea of plastic and silicone food. You thought the above photos looked delicious? Well they certainly do, but you can’t eat them. Several Japanese restaurants line the walls of this entrance, all sporting their entire menus plated and presented in vinyl. This is not your mother’s wax fruit. These dishes have been sculpted, perfected and truly obsessed upon in a manner that only the Japanese are capable of achieving. Perhaps no other culture would care to take their artificial food to this level, but it certainly does take the mystery out of ordering your entrée, and I will admit it really perked my appetite to see foods that were glistening as if straight out of the fryer, plastic or not.

 

Somehow I have developed the ritual of looking at every dish and walking to each window multiple times, taking in each glistening curry udon and crème crab croquette (koroke to people in the know), before I ultimately pick the same dish I always get. This particular time I looked at each window taking pictures of the fake food, which no doubt garnished odd looks from the mostly Japanese crowd waiting in line before I eventually ended up in front of the ramen stand.

It’s not that I can’t get ramen in Philadelphia (although that’s damn near the case) but it just is not of the quality to which I am accustomed. If someone can prove me wrong, please PLEASE please prove me wrong. Anyway, at this point I am about two months deprived of a proper bowl of ramen. That’s a big deal to me. I try to think of some comparable association that I can use to share how utterly desperate I am for ramen, and the closest I can come up with is that it’s somewhere between living without air, and living without sleep. Let’s just say I was in dire need of ramen relief.

I have mentioned before that I am a fan of Nattou (bear with me; this comes full swing back to the ramen eventually). If you don’t know, it’s a food that really brings out a strong reaction from people. I can’t think of that many people who passively have a moderate interest in eating it. You either love it so much you can’t get enough and want to eat it every day, or you think it is the foulest slimy stinky sticky substance that ever spontaneously fermented in a rotten bunch of soybeans covered in hay. In other words, it’s great stuff, and I highly recommend it. Well, this particular ramen stand in Mitsuwa offers ramen with nattou gohan (over rice, in separate bowls, of course). Sweet lord. Has a better combination ever been paired together on this earth? I had never considered this combination before, but it’s simply divine.

It may be because I have not had any ramen in months, but this was the best bowl of ramen I have ever had (*disclaimer: every bowl of ramen is the best bowl I have ever had). I went with the shoyu (soy sauce) ramen. It was buttery, salty, bits of fat floating on the surface. Covered in naruto (a fish product pressed into a spiral cake), cha-shu (Japanese style bbq pork—even though it steals the Chinese name), negi (green onions) and nori (seaweed). Eating ramen makes me sweat—at least it does if it’s doing what it’s supposed to. I like to call it – prepare your self for a mind-blowing example of my superior vocabulary – the ramen sweats. I gobbled down noodles, beads of sweat gathering on my brow as I leaned over the steaming bowl, the perfect texture and toughness interspersed with slurps of the broth. As I ate the ramen I switched back and forth, moving from rich buttery ramen to sticky savory nattou and rice over and over. I am someone who always cleans his plate, but on this occasion, I just had to exercise some self-restraint and tell myself to stop. Remaining noodles bedamned! That did not stop me from taking a few last spoonfuls of broth before I walked away to examine the rest of the market.

Restaurants are not the only thing that Mitsuwa has to offer, but looking back at what I have written so far, I suppose I would leave you to believe that is the case. In fact, the center in which Mitsuwa is located boasts a Japanese bookstore, steakhouse, and several artisan craft retailers, but I will simply focus on the inside contents of the market. I took some pictures to show it, trying to show off its scale. Unfortunately, none of them really capture how large it is, so I will omit them entirely. I would say that it’s closer to the size of a Costco than it is your average supermarket.

There is a fantastic fish department where you can buy all sorts of raw fish, from sushi-grade on down. I believe they actually slice up a massive tuna there and auction the parts off twice a year. I accidentally walked into the store during one such event. It was complete chaos. There is a fine meats department, sporting high quality meats, and some of the thinnest cuts of beef you will ever see. There is also a spectacular liquor section, housing the only shochu (closest I can describe shochu is whisky made from barley) that I have seen on the East Coast, and a fine selection of sake. They even have a wall-o-nattou with more flavors than you can shake a stick at.

Bottom line is, Mitsuwa is a fantastic resource and I always look forward to heading to New York so I can stop in. If you get the chance make sure you pop in. For a few hours that is.

Mitsuwa Marketplace

June 4th, 2007 by John (Cho-Tabetai)