Tokyo    ramen    in English    24 by 7     
 

2007-07-07

MachiBo/Nozawa
まっち棒/野沢

 

MachiBo seems to be a more-frequent-than average name for ramen shops in Japan, I have to research that. FWIW Matchibo is the name of a small town in Chiba-ken, all the way on the other side of Tokyo Bay. No clue whether this or any other ramen shop called MachiBo is named for it though. In any case at first glance if you look at the pictures this shop would appear to be a member of the Ramen Jiro-like category, but upon closer inspection it is not. A short wait (10 mins) on a Saturday afternoon at about 2 PM. There's a counter with about 10 seats and then several 2-seat tables in the back which can be moved to create tables for 4. Funny thing though is that the place is done up in all modern black but wasn't lit that well, and the aircon was average. So I ordered the usual chashu tsukemen. After being seated, I was asked whether thick noodles ("futoi" or 太い) would be OK, to which I answered yes. Then I asked for them to be katame. The service was very quick and polite. The noodles weren't really what I would call katai/katame, at least not in the Ramen Jiro sense of the word. The chashu was good-tasting but it was the thin-sliced kind, not the thick-sliced or chunk kind. The moyashis and cabbage were OK and in reasonable quantity. The broth though is where it really started to differ from Ramen Jiro. It was the same visually, with the light brown color and suspended abura, however it did not have the same taste as Ramen Jiro, not even close. It was actually sort of similar to the Kookai chain's main tsukemen broth. I think it might have been fish-based. It was certainly good, but I think they held back on the shoyu, salt and pepper a bit. They also provided quite a bit of nori on top of the noodles so if you don't want nori be sure to say "nori nuki".

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