The 2nd annual ramen festival was held recently. It was a pretty cozy event with just a handful of vendors. When I tried to get tickets general admission and VIP tickets were sold out. I thought, “oh shit, what am I going to do?” Then I had the brilliant idea to see if they needed volunteers. And that’s how I got in to see some behind the scenes action. They needed help in the bar, so I ended up slinging sake and beer. After several hours of bartending, things slowed down and I was able to check out some of the ramen.
The event will probably be the same time next year and likely in downtown or another pier in San Diego. Keep an eye on their web site http://sdramenfest.com/
Apparently, Tajima was voted most popular of the night. I’m not sure how the officials took votes and what by what criteria they used. They most likely counted the number of tokens each vendor got and went with the highest count as the winner for the night.
The evening was finished off with local artist performing a violin and hip hop mix ups. Really phenomenal sounds. I was able to crudely capture about 16 minutes of his performance with my voice memos app.
If you like hip hop, you’ll really appreciate this shorter clip of him on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36Xt-XeWnHM
Now, back to the event and it begins with my volunteer directives.
The venue from the distance. It was on one of the piers near downtown San Diego.
These are the NON ramen vendors.
The ramen vendors. This is what we came for.
The prices of the goods I was tasked with serving up.
Spicy ramen eating contest. I didn’t get to witness any of it. 🙁
Prof that volunteered. A bright orange shirt.
With your entry you get a token. If you want more ramen you buy these tokens that you then can redeem with the vendors. This apparently makes things smooth when getting ramen so vendors don’t have to make change.
Yamadaya. I didn’t get any tonight. But I’ve been to two of their locations. They have many, but so far I’ve been to Culver City and Torrance.
Beshock was my favorite. The noodles were the silkiest I’ve ever had. Seriously good.
Didn’t get any from here. From what I could tell, this place was popular.
Tajima
Ajisen was also good. It was my third bowl and by that time my tongue was burnt from trying to slurp down all the hot ramen on my break.
After crushing 3 servings of ramen, I served my self a beer.
