Chabuton/EbisuChabuton/恵比寿

 

The Ebisu area has a number of good ramen shops, both individual stores and chains. Opinions differ as to whether before the time Ebisu Garden Place opened, the area was a real ramen "center" or not. I didn't live here at that time so I can't really say for sure. In any case a new ramen shop that has recently opened (June 2007) in Ebisu is Chabuton, one of a growing chain of tonkotsu ramen shops in Tokyo and suburbs. It's right near the location where Komazawa Dori and Meiji Dori come together. If you've been (or are planning to go) to the Yodobashi Camera mega-stores in Akihabara, Yokohama or Umeda/Osaka, they all have Chabuton branches. There's even one in California. This franchise is related to the Chabuya in Omotesando Hills and to the Kagetsu chain. The Ebisu shop is a bit cramped and I had the misfortune of sitting right in front of the ticket machine, at lunch time no less, so it was a bit distracting. I had the tonkotsu tsukemen, this is a bit out of the ordinary since tontoksu is not normally a tsukemen broth, although Keika recently came out with one. It was delivered with two dipping sauces, one tonkotsu and one shoyu-based. The tonkotsu definitely has a strong pork taste, not as salty as Ippudo (my standard for Hakata tonkotsu) but still a rich creamy taste. My dining companions and I also detected a chicken taste also, which we confirmed later on the web site. The noodles are quite thin as is normal for this type of ramen, but they were closer to egg noodles in consistency. It's good that they allow you to mix your onions together as you see fit (se the above pictures), however not much chashu was provided, get extra if you can, there wasn't a selection on the machine for it when I went this time.

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