I have a confession to make. I only ate at O-Udon because I happened past their menu online and saw bukkake udon. I know what they meant, and it's a perfectly normal, non-perverted usage of the term, but the inner thirteen-year-old Mike Judge character in me (“ahuh huh huh, ahuh huh, you said bukkake”) was the principal driver behind my visit.
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“Bukkake” in Japanese means “splash,” and when applied to food, it
refers to cold noodles in a soy-based sauce. You're supposed to have
enough sauce that the end of the noodles splashes the sauce around as
you slurp.
Puerile amusements aside, these are excellent noodles. The best udon have a stretchy, toothsome quality to them, like the concept of noodles al dente writ large. The sauce is salty, slightly sour from the vinegar, and with an almost beefy undertone from dashi (bonito stock). The sauce is poured over the noodles, and then you add as much topping as you want: there is grated ginger, chopped scallions and fried tempura bits. You're meant to add quite a lot, though too much ginger will overwhelm the dish.
These compare favorably with the noodles from the udon artisans brought in specially from Japan for the noodle festivals at Mitsuwa Marketplace. The place is bright and very Japanese, the service is friendly and the prices are rock bottom: a large bowl of udon (hot or cold) with a couple of pieces of vegetable tempura and barley or iced tea is $3.95; the most expensive item on the menu is a combination of a large bowl of udon, a small bowl of rice with wagyu beef and tea; the rice bowl's beef is cooked as sukiyaki, with a salty, rich sauce that soaks into the rice.
You do have to go early if you want udon of any kind; they only make 200 portions per day, and the shop is very popular with office and retail workers in the vicinity. If you're too embarrassed to ask a man for bukkake, feel free to order “cold udon” instead, as long as you order what are some of the best noodles in the county.
Thank you, inner Butthead, for leading me here; regardless of the sniggering that occurs with the name of the noodles, I am happy to have discovered it.
O-Udon, 17870 Newhope St. #102, Fountain Valley; (714) 427-0482; oudon.com. Open Monday-Saturday 11:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.
