Menya Musashi Bukotsu/Okachimachi麺屋武蔵武骨/御徒町

  

Above the always-interesting shopping district on the east side of the Yamanote-sen near JR Okachimachi Station is Menya Musashi Bukotsu. There always seems to be a line, the store is right on the corner. Now Okachimachi doesn't have a large number of famous ramen shops, so this place is a standout. The place is divided into two sections by a building column, and you have to buy your ticket and wait inside on the right-hand side, and then when a seat frees up you might be asked to walk over to the other side and sit down there. There are 11-12 seats total. There are spoons but the tissues are on the left next to the column. There are classy little paper bibs on the left-hand side of the ticket machine in a hanging box. The black chashu men (sans egg) is what I had. The seating area is rather narrow so I really had to squeeze in. Black tonkotsu chashu-men (the black comes from squid ink) - what's that all about? I really tasted garlic more than anything else. There were medium thickness noodles, which were very soft - the noodles themselves did not have a lot of texture or taste on top of the regular tonkotsu broth, which I thought was a bit less flavorful than normal, with the layer of black squid ink floating to the top. However the star of the show is the kakuni boiled pork - three huge slices, each an inch thick and three inches long, like Sunday pork roast, the guy in the middle of the store was chopping them up furiously with a huge cleaver and throwing them into bowls along with a large number of chopped scallions. I recommend that you cut off the fatty parts and let them melt into the soup to increase the flavor but this place was pretty good just like it's sister shops, one of which in Takadanobaba we have already reviewed.

Amasan.jp review with a link to the machine menu
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