ラーメンやんぐ (Ramen Young in Mishima, Shizuoka Prefecture)

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ラーメンやんぐ

Cold shio ramen with freshly sliced lemon. This tasty bowl almost cost me an arm and a leg in motorcycle repair bills, but I’ll save that story for later. The shop has an eclectic artsy cafe vibe, but I’ll save that for later as well.

I was driving around the Izu Peninsula for a day, as motorcycle riders are prone to do when my 2008 KTM 990smt’s engine sputtered out. The battery was on the old side, so I figured a push start would get her going again. At worst I’d have to find some jumper cable and get the juice going that way. This isn’t my first rodeo with my older bike, and my habit of letting the battery go for an extra year or two past expiration has been an ordeal in the past. But it just wouldn’t start. I tried everything, but the bike was dead. I figured the battery had given its last volt, and with no shop to buy a new battery in sight, I left my ride in a parking lot and took a three-hour bus back to Tokyo.

A few days later I returned, popped the new battery in, and my baby started right up. To ramen!

Ramen Young has options. Shio, shoyu, tonkotsu, and mazesoba as well as side menu items and limited bowls. This was in the middle of a sweltering summer, and ramen shops are usually kind enough to have a cold hiyashi ramen on the limited menu.

Shio ramen with thin lemon slices to the rescue. It’s like lemonade . . . but ramen! They squeeze about one lemon’s worth of juice into the cold broth for added refreshment.

Good, fun bowl. The shop is next to Mishima-Tamachi Station, so you might be able to make a quick stop here if you are on your way down Izu or even going across the country as Mishima Station proper is on the bullet train line.

The shop is full of merch and art. Strange art.

And this old cassette tape. Ramen Blues? ラーメンブルース. Do yourself a favor and listen to this track over on YouTube.

Funky little shop. They operate as a cafe on occasion and also open as a dinnertime curry shop some evenings.

There is more to the bike story. I parked outside the ramen shop after a short ride from the coast. It was a solid hour and a half back to my home but I had the whole day to enjoy riding. No rush. Within 10 minutes of riding, my instrument panel started twitching. I knew that the battery was dead. Bikes will continue running on a dead battery, but the second you stop, it’s game over. Lady Luck was on my side and it was all green lights until the expressway. Lady Luck blessed me again with no traffic. Then the second I left the expressway the bike died. A few blocks from my home.

In the end, the entire electrical system was out of whack, not just the battery. Luckily I know a guy, and she was back on the road in no time.

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