00:02 John Daub: Good afternoon from very very chilly Fukushima City. This is the center of Fukushima City, sort of in the center of the prefecture, and there's that wind chilling the air coming from a breeze from I don't know where. Yeah, this is the city. You can see it's a pretty little city, but we're going right here. This is Ramen Ishikari, a pretty popular place. They have some really good spicy miso ramen and this round gyoza plate called enban gyoza (round plate gyoza). There it is—there's the Ishikari kara miso ramen (Ishikari spicy miso ramen) and Ishikari enban gyoza. They have a plate that has 50 of them, actually 30 of them, and they make them fresh right before they grill them.

01:08 John Daub: Haha, oh is it here? Oh my, okay, it's started. Let's go inside. Hello. You haven't come yet, right? You're saving me a seat. Okay, thank you. Let's see, oh yeah, they're making it right now. Is that ours? Whose ramen is that? Whose gyoza is that? That looks so good, I'm starving. Oh, it's not ours. No no no, I can't stand it. They're making the ramen right now. This place is so popular, we had to line up for 15 minutes to get in. This is the lunchtime rush.

03:14 John Daub: I'm thawing out, it's so cold outside. It's been snowing, and before this Shige and I were in Takayu Onsen—I put a picture of it on Instagram, you can see that on Only in Japan TV. Thank you Renee, Hapka. Awesome, cool, because we're gonna need it—this is not cheap. We got one of the biggest ones they have. Yo yo, you see that? The ingredients are there, negi (green onions) and the onions. Oh wow.

04:27 John Daub: All right, so it's coming now. This place is usually pretty crowded. There's customers in here already, I don't want to disturb them, but Shige's already ordered for us. I'm really stoked because I love gyoza, and Fukushima—some of the famous foods of Fukushima are peaches and gyoza. I didn't know that, so we're gonna have some of Fukushima's amazing gyoza, but I also had to get a bowl of ramen because I need to warm up. There are 30 gyoza on a plate. Thank you Jim. It's too early for beer.

05:35 John Daub: This place has been in the news, you can see it's in the newspaper here. I put a link in the description of this video so you can see the Google reviews for Ishikari Ramen. Restaurants getting smoky. Thank you Seven, thank you Seven Red, I appreciate the super chats. The staff's working pretty hard. You're kind of shy. I asked the ladies if I could film before I came in here and they said okay, so we have some behind-the-scenes access, which is always cool. I'm trying to stay out of the way, but I'm totally gonna make sure I get some good shots. I can't wait—the gyoza is on the way. There's one hungry guy right there. There's the ramen broth in the background. Look at this, so busy. Everybody's working as a team. I'm gonna sit down now.

08:16 John Daub: You're hungry, right? I'm so hungry. What's the temperature? It's cold—I asked them, it's about 5 degrees, but it's the wind that makes it really cold. You can see these people chowing down on the ramen. Shige lives in Fukushima, he knows everything about Fukushima, so whenever I have a question, I ask him. Where were we earlier? Takayu Onsen. You can see the picture of Shige and I sitting in the onsen. We were in the onsen bath about an hour ago, I just put that on Instagram. We are so cold. The best way to warm up is to eat a bowl of ramen and gyoza. I get a feeling that it's coming next.

09:30 John Daub: Oh, that's the ramen. So this is the Ishikari Kara Miso Ramen, and they use a spicy miso paste for this ramen. It's a reasonable 900 yen. My nose is running. This is going to be kind of a pricey meal because we ordered a lot of food. And we get a complimentary glass of water. This ramen is delicious. So you said there are a lot of people working in this area who come to eat here because it's really good—the workers line up. Right now it's 1 PM, we came here at 12:30, so we've been waiting about 40 minutes for this ramen and gyoza. I started this stream 10 minutes ago, and we're getting really close. I see them making the gyoza and I'm getting really hungry.

11:47 John Daub: Where's my gyoza? I'm going to take you up. That's it, that's got to be it. Look at that, that's a happy face. That's mine. Wow, that looks so good. Here you go. Oh, that's the spicy miso. Thank you. Hold this for me, I got it right here. How is that? That looks so good. Okay, show us the noodles, the menmen. Look at the oil—there are the noodles underneath there. Look at that. Let's try it. It's ramen time.

14:44 John Daub: It's so good, spicy miso. Oh. Mix it. Toka, mix it. Okay. I'm going to eat it. Look at that happy face—somebody likes ramen. Oh my gosh, this spicy miso is really spicy. It's really really spicy. Okay. Thank you. Excuse me. How many? One two three four five—thirty. Oh that looks so good. Look at this—who came up with an idea like this? So you got the ramen and you got the gyoza. This is too good. Let's eat.

16:26 John Daub: Oh I see, we have to put the shoyu (soy sauce). Oh, the lard. That's chili oil. Nice. All right, let's try this. Wow. Did you take a picture? Yes, take a beautiful picture. Oh wait, we're going to take a picture. Welcome back, sorry about that. Now let's eat it. Oh yeah, it's a little different. It's hard—this is harder than normal gyoza. Steam is coming out. It's like a little ball of power inside there, just a fire inside that skin of gyoza. So good.

18:27 John Daub: The outside of it is crunchier than the gyoza in Tokyo—usually it's soft. This gyoza what I like about it is really crunchy, it's got a good texture to it. Here's what it looks like—it's got like a crunchiness to it that I don't get in Tokyo gyoza. And it's so good. I don't know what the oil is they use, but I don't care. You have to eat the ramen fast. Yeah, slurp it. Slurp the ramen—it's the best way.

19:36 John Daub: So it can give you like another minute. I'm gonna describe to you the taste of this spicy miso ramen and then we're gonna end this livestream. What I like about this ramen—you can see the noodles, they're thicker. These noodles are thicker than regular ramen noodles. I think it's a Fukushima thing—Tokyo's noodles are a lot thinner, this one is really thick. The broth— you mix in the spicy miso into the broth the way you like it. If you like it really spicy add more miso, we don't like it so spicy, use half or a little bit, but you can control the spiciness. And it adds that little kick to the miso broth—it's so good. I'm gonna add all the miso in there because I like it super spicy. But I gotta tell you, the combination of gyoza and ramen—it's why you come to Japan, it's one of those reasons, the gyoza ramen combo and a beer. That's the gyoza ramen experience, and Fukushima's famous for the gyoza.

21:06 John Daub: So thanks for joining us. Bye. Bye, I'm gonna give you a last look at the 25 remaining gyoza. We ate some of it. There you go. Bye bye from Fukushima City. I'm loving the ramen and the gyoza.