Ramen Gyoten-Ya/ShimoMeguroらーめん ぎょうてん屋/下目黒

UPDATE 2008-11-06 - This shop in Meguro has closed - however the Machida City shop might still be an option. Use the shop link below and call first to make sure other branches are still there.

A place that has had a bit of recent Japanese ramen blog buzz is Gyoten Ramen in Shimo Meguro. Gyoten Ramen was formerly known as Noodle Kitchen last year but apparently underwent a name change, although not much on the inside changed, which is good news since it's a good shop. The new dishes of note are Ramen Giro (ラーメンぎ郎) and Tsuke[men] Giro (つけぎ郎). Giro is pronounced "gee-ro" in this case. These dishes are this ramen shop's take on Ramen Jiro's special blend of "11 secret herbs and spices" that makes it such a favorite with the Japanese ramen hardcore. In any case, this dish, the Tsuke Giro, was pretty good. The base broth was a cross between the standard slightly-sweet tsukemen broth and the Ramen Jiro broth, as though they just mixed the two together, however the bulk of the suspended abura chunks did not appear to come from the usual boiling pork pot behind the counter, but instead from some little jar that the ramen-ya ojisan had hidden somewhere. The base buta portion was small (two slices for the つけぎ郎), so you might want to get extra, but the cut was very good with just the right amount of fat. It was a layered cut which suggests he rolls it himself. However it was not clear that it was a standard tenderloin cut. the noodles were standard Jiro type, and the yasai were almost all cabbage, very few moyashi.

They also have hand-made gyoza, and several other types of a la carte buta including grilled chashu that all looked good but I didn't have room for them today. They even had a Slurpee machine (sort of, "スラーピー") in the corner.

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