Abura Soba/AkasakaMitsuke油そば/赤坂見附

  

Abura Soba is a very busy shop in Akasaka Mitsuke, less than 3 mins walk from Akasaka Mitsuke station on the Marunouchi/Ginza lines. Almost a line but not quite. At the time I went there on a Saturday at 2 PM there were 6 people working there, I don't remember the last time I saw that in a shop that only had 11 seats. The girl next to the ticket machine knew some English. There are several different sizes of noodle dishes, regular (普), big (大) and double (W). Abura soba is actually a generic term for regular noodles in a "sauce" that is actually a mixture of oil and shoyu. Similar to Junk Garage. The chashu ticket on the ticket machine is 4 slices, this chashu was decent but a bit thin for 300 yen. Tell them if you don't want nori, they put nori on it by default and that might mess up the effect with this style of ramen, for some people who aren't used to it. The texture of these noodles with the abura and shoyu is a bit like pasta with sauce on it. I think it world work a bit better if the noodles were freshly made, or at least special in some way, these weren't really special. They have spicy versions of the three sizes too, look for the 辛 kanji on the buttons. If you want a whole meal then get at least the dai (big). The sign outside the store and on the counter (above) claims that the abura soba (because it is not a lot of fatty salty broth), only has 2/3 the calories, and 1/2 the fat. You decide.

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