Miharu/Ebisu瞠/恵比寿

  

I thought recently that I had covered pretty much all of the shops in the Ebisu area but then I remembered Miharu. Not sure how I forgot it. Miharu is right next to the Ebisu branch of Bannai, and around the corner from the Ebisu branch of Taizo. Miharu has been around for a bit more than a year I think, and always served a respectable bowl of ramen or tsukemen, with good chashu. However they have gotten a little daring lately, with scallop-butter tsukemen, chicken-salt tsukemen, and now maze soba and abura soba. Recently there has been a boom in the number of shops that offer maze soba and abura soba. Maze(ru) (pronounced mah-zay, means "to mix") soba is a regular bowl of noodles, sometimes thicker than regular ramen noodles, but that have just a small amount of concentrated broth and oil added. You are then supposed to mix all of the items up together in your bowl prior to eating, the same way that you might mix a bowl of Italian pasta that you had just poured some tomato sauce all over. Abura soba is roughly the same thing but with more oil and less concentrated broth. These dishes will also frequently have cut up toppings (since they mix better if cut small) such as chashu, tama negi, naga negi and menma. Miharu also puts katsuobushi in the maze soba also, but (for me) that adds a texture and a taste that is not my favorite. Miharu is a smaller shop with perhaps 11 seats and no tables, but some waiting seats in the area right outside the shop. The portion of noodles for the maze soba is a bit small, perhaps < 200 g, so the omori ticket for an extra 150 yen might be a good choice. The overall taste of maze soba is really salty, really concentrated shoyu and fish flavor in a sauce form that coats all of the noodles and provides a unique taste experience. I recommend that you be generous with the ground pepper too as that provides a complement to the taste. It will also include 2 nori sheets and a boiled egg. They will give you a spoon if you ask for it. Service is very quick and precise.

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