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We eat Electrical Udon and Blue Curry while watching guys shoot each other with electricity

Master Blaster Sep 1, 2015
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A little while back, we brought you news of Electrical Udon developed by Kurare of Arienai Rika (“Unbelievable Science”) for an event to be held in Osaka. Well, that event has come and gone, and we were fortunate enough to be there to get a taste of his technicolor noodles along with some other off-color foods like blue rice topped with even bluer curry and fried chicken with a secret green sauce.

We also got to see some of the DIY science that made Arienai Rika a cult hit with science and tech enthusiasts in Japan.

■ Arienai Rika

Upon entering Loft PlusOne West in the Namba area of Osaka, I was surprised to see that it was packed to capacity. I have to admit I’d never heard of these guys before their multicolored udon made the news, but they already have quite the following.

The guy sitting beside me explained that they teach how to make various gadgets in a DIY hacker style all with a lot of humor and flare. He also showed me a photo on his iPhone of a 10-tonne (22,000lbs) press that he had built himself with their printed guidance (Arienai Rika‘s actual press went up to 20 tonnes). Then he showed me the menu for the evening’s event.

Electrical Udon – 500 yen (US$4) half-size
Went viral on Twitter and also featured overseas news sites

Electrical Blue Curry – 500 yen ($4) half-size
The blue curry you know and love, but this year we’ve upped the blue!

Adult Cola – 500 yen ($4)
Cola with an adult taste

Erotic Cola – 500 yen ($4)
Cola with a more than adult but not quite erotic taste?

Fluorescence Aurora Juice – 600 yen ($5)
A gorgeously stylish drink. Shine a black light on it.

Crazy Delicious Topping Kara-age – 550 yen ($4.50)
Super delicious and popular item with a secret flavor included

I immediately ordered one of everything—for science! Science and hunger.

My neighbor had already finished his food but he showed me his oshibori which in the end looked like some kind of Rorschach test.

■ Drinks

First my Adult Cola and Erotic Cola arrived looking pretty much like two regular cups of cola. I tried the Adult variety first and was surprised to learn that it pretty much tasted like regular cola. I’d admit that I’m the type who can’t tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi, though, so I may have missed a subtle yet important tinge in the flavor. However, I’m guessing the adult referred to the truly grown-up experience of getting overcharged for something.

On the other hand, the Erotic Cola was unique. There was definitely something mixed in with it but I wasn’t sure what. However, as a result it kind of tasted a little flat and bland. Considering that’s how most women described me when I’m being amorous, I’d say they nailed the erotic flavor perfectly.

Finally, my Aurora Juice came out. This was basically some sparkling fruit punch with bits of fruit floating inside. It was tasty but I’m couldn’t really see its “gorgeous style.” The menu instructed me to shine a black light on it, but I plumb forgot mine when leaving my crime lab. I asked the waitress for one but she said they didn’t have any either…

Apparently, as I would see later on in the event, black lights seem to be standard issue with this crowd. Rookie mistake, I guess.

Overall, the drinks were a bit of a bust, but that’s okay the food had arrived!

■ Food

My three dishes arrived quickly one after another all in living color: a dish of blue curry with blue rice, a bowl of pink and green udon noodles, and some fried chicken with what I initially thought was a black sauce.

I tried the kara-age first. Biting into it, I was greeted with the familiar taste of chicken and barbecue sauce. However, as I held the piece in my chopsticks, I noticed that the sauce was actually green colored.

It was absolutely delicious and tangy. However, there was a taste mixed in that I couldn’t pin down but certainly made this chicken unlike any I had before. I want to say it was a kind of mint flavoring, but that was probably just the green color messing with my mind.

Next was the Electrical Udon. The creator (and host for tonight’s event) Kurare had already said that this tasted like regular udon and he was right. In fact, the most impressive thing about this udon is how normal it tasted. Usually when monkeying with a food’s color, the added ingredients can’t help but deviate the taste at least a little. However, if you were to blindfold me, I doubt I could tell the difference between electrical udon and regular.

By the way, the photo in the original tweet was taken under a blacklight, giving it that extra Tim Burton circa 1990 look to it.

[tweet https://twitter.com/reraku/status/634161559476895744 align=center]

Finally, it came time for the Electrical Blue Curry. We’ve seen blue curry before, many times actually, but this blue curry comes with blue rice as well. By that I mean that the rice pictured below isn’t just covered in blue curry, the rice itself is blue too.

The taste was more or less like regular curry but with some augmentation from the blue ingredients. It was still tasty and very mild. Actually it was milder than any curry I’ve had before leading me to wonder if it wasn’t the blue color messing with my sensory perception again.

■ Show

This event wasn’t all about the food however, it was also a chance for Arienai Rika to show off some of their more famous experiments live.

First, they made some ice cream using liquid nitrogen by pouring it on a bowl full of ingredients like milk, sugar, and egg. But before they did, they tested the liquid nitrogen on an unsuspecting Furby, then passed it around the audience. It physically looked okay but was thoroughly chilled, had a listless look and sadly didn’t seem capable of asking to be my friend any more.

After making the ice cream they sold it to audience members, but unfortunately it was sold out before I could get some.

Then they brought out their Tesla cannon, which was a Ghostbusters style back pack with a hand-held Tesla coil that could fire off sparks.

Of course they handled such as device the only way one should: irresponsibly! They proceeded to zap each other in the hands and face as well as some members of the audience with the Tesla cannon.

After that came the Detonation Cannon. This appeared to be a handheld car muffler that you could make constantly backfire with a can of gas. It was every bit as loud as my uncle’s ’72 Plymouth and even occasionally spat out flames just like that old boat did.

The rest of the event was a talk by the Arienai Rika members Poka and Kurare, who used a giant sword as his pointer for the PowerPoint slides. They covered various topics from calculating the theoretical top speed of a ghost to be 623.5 km/h to how to find your own uranium and cook yellowcake with it. Kurare said that black light made yellowcake glow extremely bright and demonstrated on a small vial he brought.

This made me glance over at my empty glass of Aurora Juice wonder. Although he didn’t reveal the ingredient to Aurora Juice or any of the others, Kurare did mention some of the key ingredients in making blue food such as coconut oil and purple cabbage (as used in the hex color coded beverage #C0FFEE).

The talk concluded with a secret topic that I’m not permitted to divulge, but I will say it involved toy poodles and Bomberman.

When the house lights came back on, everyone began forming a line to get their copies of various Arienai Rika books signed by Kurare while others stood around and talked with the other members about how they built their own unusual gear. Needless to say, everyone was pleased with the evening’s events and with good reason. Arienai Rika put on a show like no other that actually hit us in all five senses, maybe even the sixth if you include the talk about ghosts.

Oh yeah, there was so much I almost forgot the pillow that bled profusely the moment tea was spilt on it…