Ramen Gaijin - Spicy Tan Tan Ramen

My wife treated me to an early Father's Day celebration at Ramen Gaijin, located in Sebastopol.  I know what you are thinking - there is good ramen in Sebastapol?  The answer is a resounding Yes!  I have been here once before and it looks like their ramen offerings changed somewhat.  But what I do remember was how delicious their pork belly was (and still is).  It's a fairly large slab with both fatty and meaty sides and it just melts in your mouth and has so much flavor.  The bowls are a little pricey at $17 each but sometimes, life is just worth it.  A lot of people ask me where my favorite ramen place is.  I think this restaurant may be one of them because it ranks high in the taste department.

Ramen Gaijin
6948 Sebastopol Ave
Sebastopol, CA
(707) 827-3609
http://www.ramengaijin.com/

We started with the tsukemono for an appetizer, which is a pickled dish.  I'm not quite sure what everything was, but there was ginger, kimchi, cucumbers, mushrooms and pickled strawberries.  We all agreed the mushrooms were the tastiest.

After that, our bowls of ramen came.  I had the spicy tan tan, which comes with the aforementioned delicious pork belly, green onions, spicy ground pork, charred cabbage, woodear mushrooms, mustard greens, and a 6 minute egg.  The broth was just a tad above my spice comfort level, but as you can see, I was still able to demolish the bowl.  The noodles are sapporo noodles and are the perfect thickness.  

Consider this bowl defeated!

This is my wife's bowl.  She ordered the shoyu ramen.  Again, a big piece of pork belly with a 6 minute egg, woodear mushrooms, shaved leeks, menma (bamboo shoots) and wakame (seaweed).  The broth tasted like a standard shoyu (soy sauce).  The noodles are a bit different than the tan tan bowl - there are rye noodles in the shoyu bowl.  Pretty tasty but I think I liked my broth better.

Our little one enjoys good ramen as well.  Well, she enjoyed the noodles anyways.  And the mushrooms on the appetizer.