湯本ハイカラ中華日清亭本店

High collar Chinese food? What does that even mean? ハイカラ – Haikara – is a phonetic word meaning stylish, in a Western sense.

I’ve seen this label applied to ramen in the past, but still don’t really understand the meaning.

Maybe it means that the shop is a notch above the rest of the Chinese restaurants that dot every city in Japan. The noodles are all made by hand using the old “bamboo” method, where the noodle master basically jumps up and down on a bamboo pole to knead the dough.

They weren’t making noodles at the time I went, unfortunately.

These were good noodle for sure.

Coupled with some of the shops limited kakuni – stewed pork – this was one of the most epic post-motorcycle ride bowl I’ve had.

Hit the spot is an understatement. Tender and sweet, I could snack on this stuff all day. And it sure beats the convenience store food that we tend to eat too much of on our rides.