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Takamatsu is somewhere we toured during July. Takamatsu (高松) is the capital of Kagawa prefecture, which is located in Shikoku island. It is also the only place we visited in Shikoku region of Japan.
Takamatsu is mostly famous for its udon -- drawing many tourists from honshu, and that's the sole reason why we visited.
We ended up visiting two shops, even though we planned for four (ran out of time, and got too full). The first shop was extremely famous for its tempura in addition to their awesome kake udon, and the second shop famous for their kamaage udon. These shops were not "stumble-upons", they were decided after considerable research and recommendation from my Japanese labmates.
Waiting in line... outside...
Waiting in line... inside...
Tempura "grandma" (that's how I refer her):
Udon "grandpa":
He looked up! He was an extremely nice fellow. Upon hearing that we were from Canada, he walked out of his booth, and greeted us personally. He then showed us around the noodle counter and prepared the noodles for us (it's usually self-served, but we were too clueless).
Kake udon, topped with green onions and tempura bits:
Shrimp tempura:
Egg tempura and fishcake tempura. These remain the best tempura I have ever had (I also tried a lot more in Tokyo). The way they fry them is slightly different, as they continuously splash tempura dough over the pieces while they are being fried. The egg was extremely well executed -- the outside was slightly crispy, and the inside was slightly runny.
Shop number 2:
Kamaage udon. The udon doesn't look very special, but it was the best udon noodle I have ever tasted. Kamaage udon stresses the raw flavour of udon, and you could really taste the freshness of these noodles.
After we stuffed our faces for literally less than $10 each, we decided to walk around the city:
Lol @ sign:
Lol @ ramp:
And of course, wouldn't be Japan without an LV, even in Shikoku:
It's been a long day (not really)
Future blogs: Okayama Himeji Okinawa Hong Kong South Korea and much more around Tokyo
On May 28 2009 15:29 hyde wrote: OMG stop posting these blogs LOL when ever I see photos like these (which btw are pretty awesome) makes me want to drop everything and go back there.
Oh nice. I finally see a pic of how those look like. My girlfriend (who used to live in Japan) keeps telling me all the time about how much she misses japanese noodles and how awesome those shops that were specialized in selling udon were. I'm gonna show her this blog just so that she droll.
tempura is a different kind of batter compared to the traditionnal one western countries use (I think it's made of cold water and wheat flour? I don't remember). It's generally much crispier and lighter than other deep fried food
EPT
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