He's British so his opinions on food don't count. Also, I believe he said at one point that he used to like instant coffee, so his opinion on espresso really doesn't count.
Love the smell of coffee but don't like the taste. Wife drinks a lot of coffee, she spends a lot of money in Costa and on their damned Tassimo pods.
I ate at a Ramen house. It was an interesting experience almost immediately. Tables were all long bench style (think school) so it was communal seating with strangers. I ordered a spicy miso ramen which took them over 30 minutes to microwave. They served it with a Japanese spoon and chopsticks. These hipsters wouldn't give me a fork and they wouldn't pack it to go because it was 'bring your own container'. It was a pain in the ass and I splashed the broth all over my shirt for the first 5 minutes. Eventually I had mild success using chopsticks to push food into the spoon and quickly eat what I could before it slid off. This had the added benefit of soaking my chin and neck with ramen broth. Overall it tasted about 1.5x better than Maruchan... The place was a bit too pompous with faux-authenticity. Not even sure if chopsticks are the right utensil for ramen. A country that forged steel into 4 foot death blades surely doesn't eat with ancient wooden sticks. I did see the hipster next to me eat his chicken wing appetizer entirely with chopsticks. He was both amazing and a douchebag.
Alas, chopstick and spoon tends to be the way to eat soupy noodles. Sushi, however, is actually finger food. If you're eating it with chopsticks, you're doing it wrong.
I actually think chopsticks are the superior utensil for noodles. I use them for spaghetti too. As a life skill, you should learn how to master the art of the chopstick and you'd probably prefer over a majority of utensils. When you master the chopstick, you don't even need a spoon for rice anymore.
Have you mastered the art of the chopstick? I can lift up a wad of noodles in red sauce with some mushroom and a meatball all together.
I've watched enough Japanese cinema to know that the true way to use chopsticks with noodles or rice is to just lift up the bowl in front of your mouth and push the rice/noodles with the chopsticks into your mouth in a frenzied, rapid fire succession. Loud slurping is encouraged.
I bought some Joyce Chen bamboo chopsticks to practice, looks like they are of high structural integrity. Are chopsticks reusable or do I throw them away?
You reuse the nice ones. Here is some kind of noodle soup. I don't know what it is. No one spoke English and they gave this to me after trying to explain that I couldn't get what I wanted. It was pretty good.
Noodle shop. Apparently the pork kidney soup is the bomb but I wasn't in the organ mood. http://www.yelp.com/biz/noodle-21-san-pablo
looks like a fusion restaurant so it's not particularly anything specific to a country. you should try the Vietnamese iced coffee next time you're there