Man…..this says it all for the past Sunday.
In Bay Park no less…..a 114 in El Cajon? What is going on? And with the Valley Fire raging away….all the evacuations and during the midst of a pandemic…..can we just turn the calendar over to 2021 now?
I needed to head out to Nijiya to do some grocery shopping, I decided to go ahead and continue trying take-out from all of the places in the strip mall. Next up….
Before you think I'd gone off the deep-end…..it was a 102 degrees on Convoy; Karami was doing their Reimen. Which I've had before. And though I left thinking it was quite mediocre, it seemed like a decent remedy for the heat on this day.
I placed my order, went shopping at Nijiya, and returned to find my stuff bagged and ready for pick-up.
Just for the heck of it; I ordered the karaage as well; which I though was fairly decent on a previous visit, In terms of packaging; well, the cheapo two part cardboard container had leaked so I lost some of the broth in the package.
At least things were nicely separated. First thing I did after getting the containers our of the saturated packaging was to put my thick ceramic ramen bowl in the freezer to help keep things chilled.
I had a taste of the karaage; which wasn't bad at all. I didn't expect it to be super crisp; and it wasn't. But it had a very nice savory-salty-mildly sweet flavor that I enjoyed. I really didn't need the sriracha mayo thing at all. I'm looking forward to having this again….when I'm ready to eat in.
As for the ramen…….
Not having to worry about a cold ajitama in the reimen works to Karami's benefit here. The egg was nicely marinated; if anything, the ajitama from Menya can be too salty at times. Loved the curly and nicely prepped noodles; which still had that nice chewy-crunch to it. For some reason, I really enjoy corn in my reimen (do you remember what one of the Gaijin customers at Ichiro's called it? I still have to stifle a laugh when I order this). But, much like the previous time I had this; the broth was super salty and had a weird tininess…….that; while I don't want to insult the place; tastes like mass-produced stuff. Bummer, because I'd enjoyed this much more than the last time I had it. But I just couldn't finish that broth.
Oh well…..at least I can look forward to having the karaage again when things get back to normal.
Karami Ramen
3860 Convoy St
San Diego, CA 92111
(858)430-6300
Current Hours:
Mon – Fri 1130am-3pm, 430pm – 9pm
Sat – Sun 1130am – 9pm
Speaking of things getting back to normal….so we now have the Valley Fire; which as of the last time I checked the news had burned over 17,000 acres and was under 5% contained. I took this photo of the sun from my driveway. Though it's not as bright red as what I took in 2007 during the Witch Fire; it still looks other-worldly.
To all our "FOYs" out there, we hope you are safe, in good health, and managed to keep cool during the record heat of this Labor Day weekend.
postscript:
With all the craziness that's going on these days; I thought I'd end with a Frankie pic. I was changing our beddings this weekend. As usual, I remove the sheets and such a pretty much leave them on the floor while I put on the new set. When I turned to grab the beddings for the washer; I noticed someone had made himself at home……..
I don't recall F doing this before. It really cracked me up.
Have a safe and productive week!