If you could go back to pre-pandemic times to eat any meal where would you go? I was having this conversation with a friend recently. I first thought of Keens or maybe Nami Nori or Baltaire or Giorgio Baldi. Then I was thinking about a super simple lunch I had in Tokyo a few years ago at a restaurant is called Echika Fit. It’s just a small ramen counter hidden away inside the Ginza Metro station. It’s just a few seats at a counter and you might just breeze by it as I have few times as I have trying to find it on return trips. Even though it’s just a bowl of ramen it really ends up being pretty special.

I’m honestly not even that much of a ramen person. At times it can be good, but if I’m going to eat something unhealthy in Japan it’s probably going to be Katsudon or curry. But Echika Fit is known for this hot broth creamy chicken ramen that is just so comforting and good. If I could be teleported to a place right now this could very well be my choice.

The other thing to order while you are there is the rice with raw egg appetizer. It’s one of the simplest and most delicious things I have ever eaten. It’s dead simple stuff — just a raw egg, hot rice and an aged soy sauce. How it is so good is beyond me. Only in Japan where food quality is on such a high level would I trust a restaurant to serve me a raw egg.

Don’t forget a cold beer and you have yourself a truly religious lunch experience. After a day of running around Tokyo this just hits so perfectly. If I was there right now I could probably do at least six more months of quarantine standing on my head.

Better make it two beers.