Ichiban/Umegaoka一番 胤暢番/梅ヶ丘

 

This casual little place right across from the north exit (北口) of Umegaoka station on the Odakyu Odawara line has all the looks of a "neighborhood" ramen shop, the kind of place where everybody knows your name, etc. On a relatively cool August Saturday afternoon, a college baseball game was playing on the little TV above the beer fridge, with several 20-something guys watching intently as they chowed down. The chashu tsukemen here was very good, with a broth that was not sweet at all and tasted more to me like beef broth than pork or fish, this is the first time in memory I have seen that. The broth can be ordered spicy (karai) but I asked for it to be not spicy. The noodles looked homemade and were fairly thin for tsukemen noodles as you can see from the picture so I recommend you order them katame or else they might be overcooked for you. What looked like a husband and wife team were intently scurrying around behind the counter grilling pork and cooking noodles. The chashu was grilled up and cut into smaller chunks and placed in the soup. It also looked like it had been marinated in some sort of shoyu blend for a while as it had a thick, slightly sweet coating on it. The regular "futsu" portion or noodles was rather small so I suggest you get the omori large size if you are hungry. There's no ticket machine in this shop, you will pay them when you leave.

Amaojisan review (more pictures)
Diddlefinger Map (English labels)
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