KatsuMaru/Meguro勝丸/目黒

 

Katsumaru is just across the Meguro River (目黒川) going west from JR Meguro station. This branch is the "hon ten" or original store. While overall it was a decent bowl, there's a few things that distinguish this place from others, both positive and negative. The store is clean and well-kept, with a 7-seat counter and 2 or 3 tables for 6. There was no one in the place at 2 PM on a Saturday. I had the shoyu tsukemen with extra chashu and menma. It was delivered with real seaweed that was very crunchy, not with strips of nori like most places. The menma was also crunchy too and tasted like it had been pickled in some sort of slightly sweet miso sauce. The noodles were strange though, they were the thin curly type sort of like Bannai, but they were cut very short, the average length of a noodle was 4-5 inches. This made it a little difficult for dipping into the tsukemen sauce. The sauce itself was just the usual chicken stock into which they added some soy sauce and a few negi shavings (they did this right in front of me), so no points added there. The volume was decent though, without me having to order an omori portion. The chashu was decent with very little fat but was cold, not grilled. There's an interesting store two or three shops down on the same side (going back towards JR Meguro station) that sells all kinds of Japanese pottery, plant pots, and planting materials, run by a very old woman who just sits in the back and looks out on the street as people walk by. Note: thh shop home page has several menu choices at the bottom - the last three are not available at the Meguro honten, for whatever reason.

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