#2359: Daikoku Kitsune Udon

Animal noodles! Animal noodles? Yup – animal noodles. That’s at least what I used to call these – there are two of them very popular in Japan – kitsune uson and tanuki soba. Kitsune refers to a fox and has fried tofu with it. Tanuki soba usually has either a round disc of tempura or little bits of it. Here’s a little more info from Wikipedia –

Udon (饂飩^?, usually written as うどん) is a type of thick wheat flour noodle of Japanese cuisine. Udon is often served hot as a noodle soup in its simplest form, as kake udon, in a mildly flavoured broth called kakejiru, which is made of dashi, soy sauce, and mirin. It is usually topped with thinly chopped scallions. Other common toppings include tempura, often prawn or kakiage (a type of mixed tempura fritter), or aburaage, a type of deep-fried tofu pockets seasoned with sugar, mirin, and soy sauce. A thin slice of kamaboko, a halfmoon-shape fish cake, is often a garnish.

The flavor of broth and topping vary from region to region. Usually, dark brown broth, made from dark soy sauce (koikuchi shōyu), is used in eastern Japan, and light brown broth, made from light soy sauce (usukuchi shōyu), is used in western Japan. This is even noticeable in packaged instant noodles, which are often sold in two different versions for east and west.

Kitsune udon: “Fox udon”. Topped with aburaage (sweetened deep-fried tofu pockets). This originated in Osaka.

Let’s have a look at this foxy noodle.

Daikoku Kitsune Udon – Japan

The distributor/import sticker (click to enlarge).

Detail of the side panels (click to enlarge). Contains fish. To prepare, add boiling water to fill line and cover for 3 minutes. Stir and enjoy!

Detail of the lid (click to enlarge).

The noodle block.

Loose bits from inside the cup. Note the little granules.

Finished (click to enlarge). The noodles were a bit wider, but not by much. This way of presenting udon always confused me a little, but hey whatever works. While the noodles were decent, the broth was a salty and rough go. The broth had a very strong fish taste to it which is fine, but the saltiness level was extreme. The kamaboko is everywhere which I really like as are the seaweed and strips of tofu. 1.5 out of 5.0 stars. JAN bar code 4904511006062.