食べ方が難しいでござる : Sousaku udon ya zenmaru

When people talk about udon, they say things like "it's chewy and delicious" or "the soup stock has a nice aroma," but to be honest, I've never thought that udon was that delicious. It was just hot, so I thought I'd try some cold udon, and I stopped by without thinking too much about it, but it turned out to be a hit. I found a delicious and wonderful restaurant. You order at the counter as soon as you enter the restaurant, but you pay after the meal. The staff are very cheerful, polite, and very likeable. Grated beef dashi soy sauce chicken tempura special, regular (2 servings), cold, 900 yen, the longest one. It has the longest name, but it looked delicious, so I ordered this. When you tell them the name of the product, they ask you how many servings you want. There's a lineup of 1 serving for small, 2 servings for regular, and 3 servings for large, so I ordered 2 servings. Two servings was enough for an average person to eat. I was asked next whether I wanted hot or cold, and chose cold. I was then asked whether I wanted light or strong, and after I hesitated for a second, they asked me if I wanted light, so I chose light. I'm sure the default is light. They ask you a lot of questions, just like at Convenience stores cashier. The food is served within a minute of sitting down. It was so fast I was surprised. Udon. It's not just firm, but has a firmness that makes it easy to eat. It has a smooth taste and is definitely delicious. Chicken tempura. It's freshly fried and warm and seasoned. The surprising thing is how soft it is. I can see why everyone orders it. You should order this. Beef. This also has a sweet Kansai-style seasoning and goes well with grated daikon radish. However, the chicken tempura is several times more delicious. So. So. When I ordered, I was asked if I wanted light or strong, and I chose light. I'm wondering what that was. When the food was served, they asked me to pour the dashi (a bottle that looks like soy sauce with kelp stuck in it) that was on the table, but I can't imagine that this is light. Even for someone who grew up in Kanto, it's strong. It looks like a color that makes it hard to imagine that someone from Kansai would call this light. If this is light, what about strong? Or, in the first place, there was only this one bottle on the table, so what would I put on it if I wanted a strong flavor? I wondered a lot of things. Maybe they told me to put it on if the flavor was too weak? No, I'm sure they told me to put it on from the beginning. So how to eat it was a mystery. It's not the restaurant's fault, I'm just not used to eating udon so I don't know how to eat it. For example, I don't know what kind of udon "bukkake" is. Some restaurants put something like soy sauce on the bowl without the soup, and some put something like dashi. Some restaurants put something on from the beginning. It seems like they often put it on later, but there must be a reason why they don't put it on from the beginning, and I don't know it. So I was left with the question of whether I was actually eating it differently, and it made me feel uneasy. It felt more difficult than making my debut at Ramen Jiro, and I just chose it because of the appearance and name, but I can't help but be curious. It's delicious. It's very delicious. However, there are so many things I can't understand just from the menu names that I don't know the difference between ordering light and strong without asking Google Sensei and studying. For example, as someone who grew up with "rice on the left, miso soup on the right," the Kansai rules like "rice on the left, miso soup on the top left (above the rice), side dishes on the right?" really seem foreign to me. Even udon is difficult because there are so many things that surprise me, like foreign food. It was delicious, so I would like to study and try again. Or rather, I would like to know the correct way to eat at this restaurant. Thank you for the meal.