Menya Shouno/Ichigaya麺や 庄の/市ヶ谷

  

The November 2008 Ramen Lovers Club went to Menya Shono this month, this time it was Diego's pick. This place is near Ichigaya station, on the north side of the river - turn left at the McDonald's after you go over the bridge going north. Sort of near Ikaruga. Maps such as Google suggest that it is on the right side of the street, when it is actually on the left, when you are going up the hill. By far, this was the strongest yuzu taste that I have ever tasted in a tsukemen broth of any type, either shoyu or tonkotsu gyoukai. A large basket of ramen mags (for browsing while you wait) greet you at the door, more places should have this, this let's you catch up on the latest ramen news while waiting for your meal. If you have to wait on line a long time and you can make it through a magazine or two, this basically makes up for the cost of the meal, if you then don't have to buy the mags. You can get either cold or warm noodles and they have a seriously spicy karashi mazesoba. If you get that, note that for 100 yen they can add some broth to the mixture for you. The menu is on the podium outside and the menu is there - only two people are allowed to wait inside the store on the bench. With the lights on and the pots going it was fairly warm inside the shop. Watch out size-wise since the omori is > 400 g. There were a lot of onions in both the broth and on top of the noodles. For the extra chashu ticket you get 6 decent sized pieces of grilled pork - good fat/meat ratio.

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