There is a ramen restaurant in Tokushima City that my brother Ma was hooked on when he was in high school, and he used to go there all the time.
It is called Manpei, and I was sure I had been there more than 10 years ago.
However, so many years have passed that I have no memory of the taste or even the interior. Besides, it was long before I started Weekly Tokushima, so I decided to pay a quick visit.
I've passed by the restaurant a zillion times, so the exterior is familiar to me. It's cool, like a warehouse.
Chinese Soba Noodle Manpei
This sign has a unique shape, but I wonder what it represents. It looks like Australia, Shikoku, a large fallen leaf, or a silhouette of a cabbage.
I flipped through the "Tokushima Ramen Super Book" to see if there were any clues, but to my surprise, Manpira was not listed in the book. (I checked the food log, and it seems that the restaurant does not appear in the media very often.)
) With the mystery still unsolved, we entered the restaurant!
We sit near the entrance, where the air-conditioned breeze hits us the hardest.
The stylish brick-patterned wallpaper and the geometric, floral-patterned wallpaper were all very particular about the room.
But I didn't recognize it at all. I was not even sure if I had actually been there before.
At any rate, I looked at the menu on the wall and ordered. (Manpira does not have menus at each table.)
I casually looked at the bookshelf and saw the complete Dragon Ball line.
Suddenly, my memory trips back to my high school days.
(Well, I remember my classmate, F-kun, was in trouble because he borrowed a copy of Dragon Ball Complete Edition from his friend and his senior classmate Gian. I wonder how he is, F-kun. Rumor has it that he became a shipbuilder and then became a host, and then got down on his knees in front of the station when he was caught with eight gropes. …… (I hope he's doing well.)
While I was thinking about something totally unrelated to Manpei, the ramen came.