Ajichi/Takadanobaba味一/高田馬場

 

Ajichi is a recent addition to the Takadanobaba ramen scene, having opened in April of 2007 along with a branch of Menya-Sou. It's on the Waseda Gushi side (west) of Takadanobaba station, just a couple minutes walk west from the station on the main drag, on the left side of the street. The shop was not crowded at about 6 PM on a Thursday night, but that's probably a lull before the party crowd starts making the rounds. The west side of Takadanobaba station is a bit quieter than the east side also. In any case since the weather is cool now in Tokyo I decided to start moving back into ramen mode from summer tsukemen mode. The shoyu ramen here was quite good and differed from the standard bowl in a number of ways: the noodles were very thin and looked homemade, almost as thin as instant-ramen noodles, but much better quality, although what looked like a fair amount of kansui, and they were served al dente by default. The broth had a slightly smoky-sweet flavor, not as salty as regular shoyu, this was surprising but was probably the best part of the dish. The pork was cut into thin strips about 1" by 2" and was grilled, it was easy to get a hunk of pork and noodles into one bite. Definitely give it a whirl. The omori portion was 1000 yen, a bit steep but worth it in my opinion.

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