Carrie,
For noodle dishes in a Japanese-influenced cuisine, try the "udon" dishes; they're usually a fat white (rice?) noodle without broth. Look for "soba" dishes, too; that's the grayish-brown buckwheat noodle, my personal favorite. Also, there's the thin white noodle, "somen". There are also transparent noodles, some made from rice, some from mung beans. Chinese and other Asian cuisines all have their kinds of noodles, too.
Saimin is what people who grew up in the Islands called the noodles with broth dish that we ate so ravenously. It usually had pieces of sweet pork, (char siu, Chinese), and fish cake, (kamaboko, Japanese). Ramen is what seeped into the West as the instant noodles with broth that came out of Japan. I think saimin as a word has more of a Chinese root, which is probably correct, since the noodle with broth dish seems to be of Chinese origin. At least that's what was implied in that great Japanese film, "Tampopo" (trans. in "dandelion"
, about a woman who wanted to sell the best ramen in town.
We're vegan now and I'm sure glad all of the locomocos and plate lunches are no longer in my realm of eating.
For anyone interested in a great bento place on O'ahu (has some vegan options), check out The Well Bento on Beretania near its confluence with King St. and University Ave. in Mo'ili'ili. Their food is not just like all of the other bento places. It's located across King and Beretania streets from the Good Earth Natural Foods store.
And, oink, I think you meant "musubi", the thick, triangular rice balls sometimes wrapped in nori (seaweed) with an ume surprise in the middle (pickled plum). I've been watching lots of samurai and other period Japanese films lately and it's interesting how travelers are commonly depicted carrying a few musubi to eat along the way.
Les
Edited by - Les C on 11/01/2006 10:55:32
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