now you're talkin'

This is Ippudo, a popular noodle place in Ebisu that's about a two-minute walk from our apartment. It's mentioned in our Lonely Planet guide, and we walk past it almost every day, but there's always a line to get in and, well, it's been cold out! But last Sunday we told the kids to just deal and finally made our way in and chowed on big bowls of ramen with large slabs of juicy pork. The food came fast and our waiter never stopped moving or shouting orders to the cooks manning the enormous bubbling cauldrons that we could see (and hear) from our seats at the counter.