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Joshua Weissman
I Tested The World's Best Noodles
I Tested The World's Best Noodles
Joshua Weissman
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24:06 · Dec 28, 2025
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For
thousands
of
years,
noodles
have
been
at
the
heart
of
countless
cultures.
Translating…
Turn on Record to capture your voice and get scored
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1
/722
0:00
For thousands of years, noodles have been at the heart of countless cultures.
0:04
It's street food, comfort food, and in some places,
0:06
even a symbol of luck and longevity.
0:08
But with so many legendary versions, which one is the best?
0:12
Is there even such a thing as the best?
0:14
So today I'm traveling across Asia to try the top 10 most popular noodle
0:18
dishes in their most authentic state according to Taste Atlas,
0:22
to see if they actually earn their spot.
0:23
We are starting things off in Xi'an, China, the birthplace of noodles.
0:27
We are literally on the ancient city wall with my friend Eyal, travel expert,
0:31
and he's gonna be showing us all over Asia.
0:33
We're taking you to some places that are hidden gems,
0:35
some places are more well-known.
0:37
That doesn't matter at all.
0:37
What matters is that they make the highest quality noodles possible
0:40
and that they represent their culture with honesty.
0:43
And we're starting with arguably the grandfather of all... noodles on planet Earth:
0:48
Biang Biang Noodles.
0:50
And they're called that for a specific reason.
0:52
Supposedly it's the sound
0:53
that the hand-pulled noodle dough makes
0:55
when it's stretched and slapped against the table properly.
0:57
Okay, here we go.
0:59
Oh, man!
1:00
This is cooked to perfection.
1:04
Wow!
1:04
You didn't see that.
1:05
They're so big!
1:06
That's the biggest thing I've ever put in my mouth.
1:07
It's actually so perfectly balanced in flavor.
1:10
There's a lot of sweetness here.
1:11
Every single ingredient in this bowl is cooked to perfection.
1:14
The very first thing I notice is the presence of the noodle.
1:17
It takes the center stage of this dish.
1:19
Perfectly tender, yet perfectly chewy.
1:21
Al dente in a way;
1:22
I don't want anything to be any less... than this.
1:25
So a lot of noodle dishes in general are sort of the noodle is
1:28
meant to carry the sauce.
1:29
It's a vessel rather than the main character.
1:31
It's 100% the main character in this dish!
1:34
Salt level is perfect.
1:35
It's seasoned absolutely perfectly.
1:37
But this is the perfect heat level.
1:38
It's like a three or four out of ten on heat.
1:39
Addictive level of spice.
1:41
You don't want to stop.
1:42
All the noodles that we eat all originated here in this area.
1:46
It's fast food.
1:46
You make it fast, you eat it fast.
1:48
It's kind of like the ancient Chinese drive-through.
1:51
You go around the Silk Road,
1:53
you see a guy making it on the side of the road,
1:55
you eat it very quickly, you go on your merry way,
1:57
and it's absolutely freaking fabulous!
1:59
This is setting a tough bar
2:01
because now everything after this kind of has to look behind itself
2:04
and be like,
2:04
"Am I as good?"
2:05
And that's what we're here to find out.
2:07
I know what you're thinking.
2:07
These noodles aren't on the top 10 of the list that we're following.
2:10
But these set the baseline
2:12
because they are the dish
2:13
that gave birth to almost everything we're about to eat.
2:16
Before we left, we met the owner, the Noodle King,
2:19
who let us into the kitchen to see how their magic is done.
2:22
Not only are they doing long hand-pulled noodles,
2:24
but look at the speed for the torn noodle version!
2:26
I gave it a go, did alright.
2:27
He approved.
2:28
And Eyal got us kicked out.
2:31
We have our first official noodle dish on the list,
2:34
which is located in the night market streets of Xi'an: Chow Mein.
2:36
Chow Mein in Chinese basically means fried noodles,
2:40
so it could be any fried noodle.
2:41
There is always an egg inside.
2:43
They're usually bean sprouts, there's always green onion, and it's always fried.
2:47
I think this is the mother of all drunk foods.
2:50
We're not drunk right now,
2:51
so is it wrong to eat this and then get drunk?
2:53
We'll probably have to come back for another one.
2:55
I think that's inevitable.
2:56
Well, let's have our first.
2:58
Oh, yeah!
2:59
Before you even say anything,
3:00
this is very interesting
3:01
because you can find it all over China in different versions.
3:03
There's cumin in this, and there's cumin in this because we're in Xi'an.
3:06
I think it's great.
3:07
I can eat so many of those.
3:08
I'm with you on that.
3:09
I love the little flecks of spice.
3:11
It's just something that delivers every single time you get it;
3:13
you know what you're gonna get.
3:14
You're not gonna get a Michelin-starred meal,
3:15
but you will get a massive plate of chewy noodles that are lightly spiced.
3:19
Got a little bit of that cumin fragrance.
3:21
It's nice, I like it.
3:22
A lot of people love to, like, look down upon this dish.
3:25
I think you said it just right.
3:26
It's not meant to be the greatest noodle dish you'll ever have.
3:28
It's just meant to do what it does, and it does it extremely well.
3:32
It's like when you eat toast with a little bit of butter.
3:34
Not a lot, just a little bit.
3:35
And you're like, "Oh, wait a minute, I love this!"
3:37
Simple, easy, delivers every time, and it's cheap.
3:40
And apparently they told our street vendor my thoughts on how it needed more
3:43
seasoning.
3:43
And so in response, he put me to the test.
3:46
I'm not one to back down from a challenge, but I'll be honest,
3:48
I'm a little nervous.
3:49
And all of a sudden, now that I'm having to perform this,
3:51
I've forgotten how to use a wok.
3:53
Will my noodles be able to compare to his?
3:57
A triumphant moment!
3:58
A real good sport of a chef.
4:00
We love him and his noodles, but now we move on.
4:02
Now we're moving away from Xi'an
4:04
and headed to Chengdu in the Sichuan region of China,
4:07
home to the Sichuan peppercorn known for its numbing properties,
4:09
which is the heart of our next dish: Dan Dan Noodles.
4:12
Now, the spot we're eating at has been open for over 100 years.
4:16
So let's see where traditional Dan Dan lands.
4:18
We're in a very, very traditional place.
4:20
This is not the kind of spot that you'll see tourists,
4:23
evidently by all the staff taking photos of us.
4:26
One of my favorite things about China is
4:27
if you show up anywhere
4:28
and you are clearly American,
4:30
especially if you're taking pictures of stuff, the second that you stop taking pictures,
4:34
they're taking pictures of you!
4:35
This is Dan Dan Noodles, very much like boat noodles in Thailand.
4:38
People think, "Oh, why?
4:39
What about it is boat-like?"
4:41
It's the vessel, not the noodle.
4:43
Imagine a guy carrying a pole on his shoulders.
4:46
On one end, there's the pot; on the other end, there's all the ingredients.
4:49
Dan Dan was sort of the nickname for
4:51
that pole that people were carrying on their shoulders.
4:53
And if you just need a quick fix, that's what you get.
4:55
And that's also why the bowls are small.
4:58
It's kind of disappearing.
4:59
Places like this are harder and harder to find.
5:02
Very bold, oily Sichuan pepper flavors.
5:04
I'm very curious to know what you're gonna think about it.
5:06
Let's go for it.
5:08
This is fantastic.
5:09
Sorry, I'm like my mouth is like watering.
5:11
This is fantastic!
5:12
It's got, like, all of the incredibly deep, rich Sichuan pepper flavors, incredibly strong,
5:18
numbing spice.
5:19
The starch and the sauce kind of become one.
5:22
It's kind of almost dry in a way,
5:24
and then it emulsifies as you eat it.
5:25
And that's what I like about it.
5:26
It's, like, thick.
5:27
So these noodles are like a little bit more like a—not quite wide noodle,
5:30
but just sort of like a flat wheat noodle.
5:32
It's not an elastic chew like some of the other noodles that we've had.
5:35
Like, this is like a soft, al dente,
5:37
closer to almost a pasta-like chew.
5:39
A super underrated noodle dish.
5:40
It's not gonna be like the typical in-your-face chili oil noodle,
5:44
where it's super, super, super, super, super salty and super umami.
5:47
Instead, you're getting more flavors that you don't normally see these days.
5:50
You're getting an emphasis on not just saltiness,
5:52
but you're also getting a little bit of bitterness from the intense amount of
5:56
Sichuan chili flake.
5:57
You're getting a strong Sichuan fragrance, perfume in your mouth,
6:00
and intense numbing spice after that.
6:02
I think it makes sense to be served small like this.
6:04
I wish that there were more places serving it.
6:06
There's a reason it's on this list,
6:07
and I hope that it stays around for years and years to come.
6:10
I don't want to see it disappear.
6:11
We need more people making good Dandan noodles.
6:13
So if you're out there and thinking of doing it, do it.
6:15
Answer the call with your noodle.
6:17
What?
6:18
Take that anyway you want.
6:19
Onto our final stop in China where we're trying Zhajiangmian,
6:22
a noodle dish originating in Beijing.
6:25
So we have Zhajiang.
6:26
This is a fermented bean paste with a very deeply flavored oil.
6:30
So the oil goes in, that gets mixed,
6:32
then the paste that gets mixed in.
6:34
You have an array of different things: Cucumber, turnip, almost like watermelon radish,
6:38
sort of a soybean, and then also mung bean, bean sprouts.
6:41
There's also celery and green onion.
6:43
Think of it kind of like a ragù alla bolognese.
6:45
That's kind of the vibe.
6:47
It's very hearty.
6:48
It's very warm, very home-style cooking, and it's very much Beijing.
6:54
It's good.
6:54
It's not my first pick, if I'm being honest.
6:56
Yeah, I'm with you completely.
6:58
The noodles have an incredible texture, though.
6:59
The oil, the sauce, you've got bits of saltiness.
7:02
You've got a deep, deep, deep, funky umami from the sauce.
7:05
I like it.
7:06
It's just like not the most flavorful that we've had out of everything,
7:09
if I'm being honest.
7:09
I think that the quality
7:11
and the chew in these noodles is better than the sauce.
7:13
I wish they were carrying something better.
7:15
That said, it's still delicious.
7:16
I do think that there's far more exciting out there,
7:19
and we're going to go and uncover that.
7:21
Now we're moving this noodle train over to Thailand,
7:23
where we're joined by the legendary Mark Wiens to get what just may be
7:27
one of our top contenders.
7:29
You guessed it: Pad Thai!
7:30
And so we're at Pad Thai Thipsamai.
7:32
This is probably the most famous Pad Thai in Bangkok, in Thailand,
7:35
maybe in the world.
7:36
This is a dish that unified Thailand.
7:38
It originated in the 1930s.
7:40
There was a shortage of rice,
7:42
and the government wanted to come up with ways to reduce the consumption of
7:45
rice.
7:46
The government literally handed out recipes to restaurants.
7:49
This also became the first ambassador of Thai food around the world.
7:52
So it's very, very interesting in that sense.
7:54
So we're getting two variants: Pad Thai Hor Kai,
7:56
which is wrapped in an egg—essentially a scrambled egg in a way—
7:59
And then the more traditional original version,
8:01
which is what you would expect, right?
8:02
Goes on a plate, has some crunchies on top.
8:04
Wider noodle.
8:05
Let's try it!
8:06
Fun fact: while we were filming this, completely unbeknownst to us,
8:08
Mark Wiens was also playing in the background.
8:10
So great to have two of him in this shoot.
8:12
And let's start with the egg version.
8:15
Out of this world!
8:16
It's pretty good.
8:17
I love this.
8:17
It is very sweet.
8:18
It's, like, shockingly sweet.
8:20
This has depth.
8:21
It's like layering to all of it.
8:22
You just take a bite and you get this, like, almost umami seafood flavor.
8:26
And then you've got a little bit of acidity from the tamarind.
8:28
The egg skin to this, like, really makes it.
8:30
It almost is like a tofu skin kind of texture.
8:33
We'll go to the non-egg skin, simpler version.
8:36
Much more acidic.
8:37
And these type of noodles have a different texture.
8:38
They're, like, a little less chewy.
8:40
They're both delicious.
8:41
I like that this one's a little more balanced.
8:43
It's not so aggressively sweet.
8:44
You're getting a little bit more of
8:45
that acidity coming in
8:46
and leveling out the sweetness.
8:48
And it's a little bit more savory-leaning, which I really enjoy.
8:50
Pretty much every dish in Thailand, it's always a balance of sweet, sour, spicy,
8:55
and savory/salty.
8:56
In pretty much every Thai restaurant that you would go to,
8:59
there will be chili flakes, sugar, and there're going to be, like,
9:02
pickled chilies in vinegar.
9:04
Depending on your own personal taste, it's super common to just, like,
9:07
add more of what you want.
9:09
If you like it more sweet, add sugar.
9:11
You want it more spicy, add the chili flakes.
9:13
I blindly seasoned, so we'll see how this goes.
9:15
Cheers...
9:16
Oh, my God!
9:17
A little more heat.
9:18
It makes sense that they do that then,
9:19
because you can kind of season it to your taste.
9:21
You can create the different variations,
9:22
and the depth of flavor is already where it needs to be.
9:25
One of the things I love about Thai culture—Thais love to eat noodles
9:28
because they're customizable.
9:29
So there's some cultures where noodle dishes do not touch the original flavor from
9:33
the chef.
9:33
Thais, on the other hand,
9:34
the mentality is they want to eat noodles
9:36
because they can make it however they want it.
9:38
It's like, totally up to you.
9:39
And that's one of the great things about noodles in Thailand.
9:41
I've eaten many Pad Thai in my life.
9:42
I'll be honest with you: this is my first Pad Thai in Thailand,
9:45
and it's the best Pad Thai I've ever had!
9:47
So this raises the bar
9:49
so substantially that now it's in
9:51
that playing field of like,
9:52
"Well, wait a minute..."
9:53
"...this actually might be one of the best noodle dishes in the world."
9:55
The question is: what else is out there?
9:57
Next up, we travel to Vietnam, where we're met with a crazy contrast.
10:01
We just ate at one of the most popular,
10:03
famous spots for Pad Thai in Thailand,
10:05
but our next spot is quite possibly the most unassuming place for Pho you
10:09
could ever find.
10:10
Tucked away in an alley, up a flight of stairs...
10:12
Eyal is taking me to somebody's house.
10:15
This is someone's home, literally.
10:16
There's a bed over there.
10:18
I was delighted and shocked.
10:20
A public restaurant fully in someone's home.
10:22
I almost felt nervous being here, like I was intruding,
10:24
but simultaneously "at home," dare I say?
10:26
Eating in a situation like this usually means you're gonna have a good meal.
10:29
There are a lot of theories about how exactly Pho developed.
10:32
Pho started around here in the north during the division of Vietnam—we're talking 1954—so
10:37
a lot of people from Hanoi immigrated south,
10:39
and then that's what caused Pho to spread.
10:41
But this spot specifically, I've been coming here for so many years,
10:44
and it's by far my favorite that I've tried.
10:46
It's only open for four hours a day,
10:48
so it's kind of like an afternoon snack.
10:49
Let's talk about this broth.
10:50
So this broth is way more clear than any of the other broths I've
10:54
seen.
10:54
I mean, it almost looks like water.
10:55
On one end, I'm like, "Wow," and on the other end, I'm like concerned.
10:58
There's no color.
10:59
How could there be flavor in there?
11:00
But I haven't tried it yet, so I'm excited.
11:02
We walked in, we sat down, we didn't even order.
11:04
There was no like, "Hey, what would you like?"
11:05
It was like, "Here's the Pho."
11:06
Yeah, I'm also at a full depth squat right now in short shorts,
11:09
so enjoy that, I guess.
11:11
So... just the broth by itself.
11:13
Whoa!
11:14
It's, like, so clean, perfectly salted.
11:17
And the beef flavor is, like... it's as present as it should be,
11:20
and yet it is so clean and just subtle and nice.
11:24
And that's without even trying anything.
11:25
It's just the broth alone.
11:26
So this is pickled chilies, there's sugar, salt, vinegar.
11:30
Take one quẩy.
11:31
Put it inside.
11:32
You can break it if you want, you don't have to.
11:34
I'm having pho for the first time.
11:36
Everything I had before back home in America is clearly, like, bouillon.
11:40
They're not making stock back there.
11:41
This is actually properly boiled.
11:44
They're taking whole beef bones and they're boiling stock with unbelievable technique,
11:48
especially to get this broth this clear!
11:50
You have to pay so much attention to it.
11:51
These noodles are a little more cooked than I would like them personally.
11:55
But at the same time, I think that if they were cooked less,
11:58
they wouldn't have absorbed this incredible broth.
12:00
I mean, it's not taking away from the experience by any means.
12:02
That's the thing about pho like this.
12:03
A lot of places will add stuff to it to hide the imperfections of
12:05
it.
12:06
There's only two variables: the beef and the noodles.
12:08
If you mess one up, I mean, the whole bowl is, like, done.
12:10
This is incredible.
12:11
The flavors are really direct.
12:13
It's beef, it's a little bit of fish sauce.
12:15
It's just this, like, clean flavor, this very singular...
12:19
I mean, you can come back and eat this again and again and again.
12:21
And I think that kind of encapsulates what pho is.
12:23
It's really this sort of, like, healing broth.
12:25
And when you're sick, you have it.
12:26
When it's cold, you have it.
12:27
When it's hot, you have it.
12:28
It's a year-round, magical dish, man.
12:30
It's going to be tough to move on from here, but... we move on.
12:33
Next up, we head to South Korea for japchae.
12:35
Traditionally, this is served as a side dish and isn't really considered an entree.
12:39
But despite that, it made the list
12:40
as one of the most popular noodle dishes in the world.
12:43
So in theory, it could be punching far above its weight.
12:46
To properly test this, we'll be tasting it in two different settings:
12:48
as a side dish alongside Korean barbecue, and on the street as a main.
12:51
It looks good.
12:52
I love the fact
12:53
that this guy is tossing this in a hot pan with his hands,
12:56
bro.
12:56
Doesn't give a fuck.
12:57
I like that!
12:58
Oh, yeah.
12:59
Japchae when eaten traditionally,
13:01
it's usually a part of a big set of a lot of dishes where
13:04
you go as a family
13:05
and you share that set.
13:06
This one costs about...
13:08
$4.
13:09
So you eat a street version of this.
13:11
It's filling, it's nice.
13:12
Great drunk food!
13:13
I would have wanted...
13:14
This is making me drunk!
13:15
Yeah, exactly!
13:15
It's great.
13:16
It's fantastic.
13:16
Makes me want to take my pants off.
13:19
What do you think?
13:21
Think about the value for a second.
13:23
$4!
13:24
Back home, $4 doesn't even get you a side of mashed potatoes,
13:27
let alone a beautiful bowl of japchae.
13:28
The noodles are chewy and stretchy and nice.
13:31
The stir-fried flavor, the two different types of onion that are in it,
13:33
and then the soy helps kind of bring it together.
13:35
I like this a lot.
13:36
It's very satisfying to eat.
13:38
It makes sense.
13:38
It's one of the world's most popular noodles.
13:40
It should be.
13:41
I like it so much, I want to give it more credit.
13:43
I wish it didn't have such strong contenders in this video.
13:46
So we've had the street version.
13:47
Delicious, lovely.
13:48
But how good is it in a restaurant?
13:51
Honestly, Eyal and I were pretty disappointed.
13:53
It was clear that it was meant to be more of an accompaniment to
13:55
Korean barbecue than stand-alone.
13:57
The street japchae was more affordable, better tasting, and faster to get.
14:01
So it earns our vote.
14:03
Moving on to our next dish: laksa.
14:05
It was tough to nail down the exact country we needed to go to,
14:08
so I called up an expert, Uncle Roger, for his advice,
14:11
and he steered our ship towards his home country of Malaysia.
14:14
Despite the dodgy sign that literally just said "Laksa",
14:16
we ended up with what is titled Penang Road Famous Laksa.
14:20
We're here with Jarvis to walk us through this.
14:22
This laksa is actually a broth made from fish.
14:24
This particular shop, they use sardines.
14:27
One thing that's different
14:27
when you use sardines is the fishy smell is not
14:30
so heavy.
14:30
So apart from that, you've got a lot of greens there, you have onions,
14:33
mint leaves.
14:34
Assam laksa is different than the laksa you would have imagined
14:37
because it was born from fisherman's scraps.
14:39
Basically, you have two different kind of fruit that goes into this:
14:43
one is this thing which they basically call "asam", and tamarind.
14:46
And this is what gives it the very distinct sour flavor.
14:50
And it's really sour, by the way.
14:51
I tried a piece of
14:52
that dried fruit and it's like biting into a lemon,
14:54
but double the amount of sourness.
14:56
This could go one of two directions.
14:58
It's either absolutely incredible, or it's not good at all.
15:02
Wow.
15:02
Oh, my God!
15:03
So good.
15:04
So balanced.
15:05
Sort of sour, acidic-leaning.
15:07
There's a light sweetness to help kind of round that out a little bit.
15:10
Little tiny, tiny, tiny bit of heat in the background.
15:12
And to your point, it's not... it's not really fishy.
15:14
It's just this, like, umami, rich seafood flavor.
15:16
Oh, and the mint in there, too, adds a really nice fragrance.
15:19
What is this?
15:20
This is actually shrimp paste, or we call it "Otak Udang".
15:22
Direct translation is "The Brain of Prawn".
15:24
It depends how much you want to add in,
15:26
so you add more flavor to it.
15:27
Me being local, I can go as much as I can.
15:30
Try maybe a bit first.
15:32
I wasn't expecting it to be sweet like that.
15:34
It's almost like the sweet version of a fish sauce in the sense of...
15:36
it adds funk,
15:37
but not in the direction of salt, but actually in the direction of sweetness.
15:40
But let's talk about these noodles, though.
15:41
They're a very thick rice noodle.
15:43
It adds this really nice sort of, like,
15:45
chewy texture without it taking away from all the nice crunch from the raw
15:48
onion.
15:49
The little bits of cooked fish
15:50
that are in this...
15:50
that add a nice chew.
15:52
This is phenomenal!
15:52
This is unlike anything I've ever had before.
15:54
I love this, and it doesn't exist anywhere near me, unfortunately.
15:56
It's almost reminiscent of, like, a minestrone and a tom yum,
16:00
which seems kind of, like,
16:01
weird because neither of those ingredients are in this dish,
16:04
but it's somewhere in there, comparatively.
16:06
A lot of brothy noodles...
16:08
You kind of get tired of.
16:09
This on the other hand, as you eat it, the broth is changing.
16:12
It's becoming a little bit more acidic because it's becoming more concentrated.
16:15
You're getting a little bit more of the fish
16:16
as you go to the bottom.
16:17
It's one of those dishes where, like,
16:18
you want to go back for another bite and another bite and another bite,
16:20
and then all of a sudden the bowl is empty and you're like,
16:22
"What the fuck!".
16:23
Really, really, really phenomenal.
16:24
Moving on.
16:25
Now we move on to Tokyo, Japan,
16:27
and we have a competition on our hands.
16:29
We're picking the top three styles of ramen from this list
16:32
and having a showdown to find our favorite.
16:34
After that, we have a few other Japanese noodle dishes,
16:36
but let's hit our first stop in the streets of Shibuya:
16:38
one of the most popular tonkotsu ramen chains in the world, Ichiran Ramen.
16:43
This place is sick!
16:44
And a lot of people say that it's overrated, blah, blah, blah.
16:48
But it's cool!
16:48
You walk in, you order through a vending machine, you get the tickets,
16:51
you circle your preferences, and you can customize everything: how spicy it is,
16:54
the firmness, the richness of your broth.
16:56
This is great!
16:57
They seat you at your own private booth.
16:58
You actually can't even see your server.
17:00
Is this truly as overrated as everybody says,
17:02
or can this chain live up to the hype?
17:05
Insane!
17:05
I can't yell because everyone's very quiet in here.
17:08
I know there are many ramen places around, but immediately,
17:11
top five bowl of ramen of my life!
17:13
The noodles are so fine yet firm... they're like coated in that broth.
17:17
They're rich, savory, umami.
17:19
They just play so well.
17:20
I see why they say "order extra noodles".
17:22
The one key thing here...
17:23
If I didn't have those extra noodles,
17:24
I'd be sad because I would have eaten all of them before I had
17:27
all the broth.
17:28
Unreal!
17:28
Super elastic!
17:29
I don't know why they recommend medium.
17:31
I think firm is the way to go.
17:32
They're like a bouncy chew,
17:34
and then like the sort of "stick to your teeth" like glutinous chew after
17:37
you chew for a little bit.
17:38
The noodles have salt in them too,
17:39
so they're not diminishing the flavor of the broth as you eat them.
17:42
Insane, top tier noodle.
17:44
Onto the next.
17:44
Next up in our ramen showdown,
17:46
we are trying shoyu ramen in the first ramen spot to ever get a
17:50
Michelin star.
17:50
So it's gotta be good, right?
17:52
So this is a step up.
17:53
It's definitely a bit more refined.
17:55
They hand mill the noodles here on-site every day.
17:59
It's really... they take it very, very seriously here.
18:01
My expectations are high.
18:02
It should be better than Ichiran.
18:04
So let's dig in.
18:04
It's so beautiful.
18:05
The broth... like the little golden floating globules of fat on top.
18:09
The noodles are what I'm really excited about here.
18:11
I mean, look at this.
18:12
That is glorious!
18:13
Whoa!
18:14
Yeah, the noodles are... serious...
18:15
Crazy!
18:17
So these are like totally different than the noodles
18:19
that we had in the previous bowl of ramen.
18:20
These are more of like a slippery noodle.
18:22
I would say that this is kind of like the texture
18:24
that you expect as default for ramen.
18:26
So it's like it's very, very easy to overcook this,
18:29
and that just never happened here.
18:31
The firmness is there, it's al dente.
18:33
It's just a more slippery, more fluid noodle.
18:36
It's almost less starchy, it's more fresh.
18:37
I mean, it's phenomenal.
18:38
Worth a Michelin star.
18:40
Easily worth a Michelin star.
18:41
But the question is: hand-milled, stone-milled in-house daily.
18:45
But is it the best ramen we're going to have comparatively to Ichiran?
18:48
I actually thought Ichiran was better.
18:49
I enjoyed Ichiran more.
18:50
I thought it was seasoned a little bit more aggressively.
18:53
But this was still phenomenal.
18:54
Top tier, world-class ramen.
18:56
But if we're comparing the two, I preferred my experience at Ichiran.
18:58
Moving on...
18:59
Shockingly, Ichiran is in the lead in our ramen showdown.
19:02
But we have one last challenger, which is Tsukemen.
19:04
We're at Rokurinsha.
19:06
Iconic place, Tsukemen.
19:07
Which It's worth noting it was invented in the 1950s or the 1960s.
19:11
This place is known for being the first place
19:14
that pioneered the thick dipping sauce.
19:16
It's a very, very important spot and I'm glad we're trying this.
19:19
So you have these beautiful cold noodles, soft-boiled egg,
19:22
and then you have essentially a condensed ramen soup.
19:25
So it's extremely thick, it's extremely hearty and fatty.
19:28
So we have our prepared base.
19:30
Go in for our noodles.
19:31
These are much thicker.
19:32
Dip the noodles.
19:33
You want to heat up the noodles in this,
19:34
but also soak them in that broth.
19:37
Oh yeah, that's very good!
19:39
Insane flavor.
19:40
So the noodles are cold, but the broth is so hot.
19:42
But the second that it enters the broth,
19:44
the noodles go from cold to the perfect temperature.
19:47
Not hot, not cold.
19:48
And the broth is
19:49
so reduced that it coats the noodles almost like a sauce.
19:52
I think it's just important to note this is a seafood
19:54
and pork-based broth.
19:55
So it gives everything just like really strong, rich flavors.
19:59
Super salty, super rich.
20:00
Fatty, but it's not too fatty.
20:02
And there's so much depth of flavor.
20:03
I mean, not, not just the roasted pork flavor,
20:05
but also like the little back-notes of seafood.
20:07
And you have all these sort of toppings too, right?
20:09
You can put a little bit of what smells like dried yuzu peel.
20:12
And so now as you're eating it,
20:13
the eating experience is changing while you're eating the dish.
20:17
So by the time you get to the end of this,
20:18
you may be eating something completely different by the time this bowl gets empty.
20:21
Because the noodles are chilled,
20:22
they're like the chewiest noodles we've had so far in the best way possible.
20:26
I like a dense,
20:27
almost mochi-like chew and these... really hit the mark texturally.
20:31
By far, these are my favorite noodles so far.
20:32
Honestly, between tsukemen and tonkotsu, I just can't decide either way.
20:35
We're not done yet.
20:36
We don't have our final favorite.
20:37
Onto the next place, which is an udon spot in Tokyo.
20:40
So we ordered these noodles that had an insane texture, outrageously flavorful broth,
20:45
with even more added richness from that plump egg yolk.
20:48
So good!
20:49
I drank it straight out of the bowl.
20:50
But if I'm comparing it across the whole board, it might rank high.
20:53
But I don't know that it's the favorite out of everything...
20:55
So we move on to our final noodle dish: yakisoba in Osaka, Japan.
21:00
We've had some heavy hitters around the country, and this is a very,
21:03
very basic one.
21:04
Could this be the biggest upset on our entire list of noodles?
21:07
All it is is a basic dish cooked on a flat-top.
21:10
We had to wait a full hour just to get in,
21:13
and I'm gonna be honest with you guys: if I see a line,
21:15
I walk the other way.
21:16
But I fought it out for this place.
21:18
It better be worth the hype.
21:19
This originates in the 1930s, '40s.
21:23
It was all... after the war,
21:24
rice was not available... they were really trying a lot from very little.
21:28
People know soba noodles... this is not buckwheat noodles.
21:31
This is wheat.
21:32
Like a lot of things in Japan, it's based on Chinese dishes.
21:35
So this is based on chow mein,
21:36
and you can see the same kind of vegetables in it.
21:38
This place is maybe the most popular one in Osaka.
21:41
When you make yakisoba, each person... they have their own take on it.
21:45
We have here sort of the origin, the original one.
21:48
We have katsuobushi shaved on top.
21:50
Looks like dried parsley.
21:51
It came out done.
21:52
They just threw it on here to keep it hot, I guess.
21:54
They're cooking mostly the vegetables now.
21:56
Okay, let's do it.
21:58
Oh my God!
22:00
Why is it so good?
22:01
This is crazy good!
22:02
This is crazy!
22:03
A lot of Japanese people, you ask them, "Where's your favorite yakisoba?",
22:07
they'll tell you, "Oh, the one that my mom makes".
22:09
People have like very strong, nostalgic feelings about this dish.
22:12
You can tell why.
22:13
I'm gonna be honest,
22:14
there was a lot of waiting in line to get in here,
22:15
and I was like, "All this for yakisoba?
22:17
Like, come on.
22:17
This is not worth waiting in line for."
22:19
I was wrong.
22:20
God, the texture of the noodles, they're starchy.
22:23
The chew!
22:24
The sauce is so, like, salty yet sweet.
22:27
It is perfectly seasoned.
22:28
I've been eating all day.
22:30
This brought my hunger back!
22:31
It's so goddamn good.
22:32
It's not about what's fancy.
22:33
It's not about how many ingredients went into it.
22:35
I'm eating something, and ultimately, how delicious was the item that I ate?
22:39
It's worth noting.
22:40
It's very simple.
22:41
It's whatever, but it's still a traditional dish.
22:43
This is a family business.
22:45
Four generations.
22:46
It's in the culture.
22:47
And there's so many textures.
22:48
It's not just chewy; the crispy noodles at the bottom...
22:50
There's so many layers of flavor and texture in this big fan.
22:53
Yeah.
22:54
Zero notes.
22:54
This has been a lot of traveling to find a favorite noodle.
22:56
And thank God we're about to get there.
22:58
But I have to say thank you to Eyal,
23:00
the man who made this possible.
23:01
Thank you.
23:02
Thank you for having me.
23:02
If there's one thing
23:03
that I think should be your takeaway from this is
23:05
that travel as much
23:06
as you can.
23:07
Traveling changes your perspective on life.
23:09
If you travel with respect and with your eyes and minds open,
23:12
you will experience... amazing things.
23:13
And I think we've experienced some quite amazing noodles on this trip.
23:17
Eyal does this stuff privately.
23:18
He's made guides so that anyone can kind of follow what we follow today.
23:22
So you want to find it?
23:22
It's on his website.
23:23
But... more importantly, let's talk about the favorite noodles.
23:26
So I'm gonna be honest.
23:27
No cop-outs, not gonna say, "Oh, they were all my favorite."
23:30
There was one that really stood out,
23:31
and it was the Biang Biang noodles by far.
23:33
I know they weren't on the list.
23:34
I feel wrong for picking it, but that's what I like the most.
23:36
God damn it!
23:37
That goes to show that even the most popular dishes aren't necessarily the best.
23:40
It comes down to your own personal taste.
23:41
So you're gonna find out which one you like, depending on where you go.
23:44
So that goes to show
23:45
that the list of great noodle dishes is far longer than any noodle ever
23:49
could be...
23:50
So subscribe, and I'll see you next time.
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