Ichibanya/Jiyugaokaいちばんや/自由が丘

   

Accompanying my wife to Jiyugaoka one sunny winter day, I stopped into Ichibanya to have their special "maguro" ramen - the maguro slices weres flavored with coarse black pepper. Standard shoyu broth, a bit watery if anything. The maguro was very thin, almost matchbook sized pieces, the pork was even thinner - they were paper thin, with the fat they were practically translucent. Overall the ramen was a - when I declined the boiled egg, they got some points for offering me menmas in place of the nuki tamago, not many places do this. After I walked in, other people started filing in, right at 11:30 on the dot. This place is in the basement down a fairly steep stair case - there are also pictures outside of all of the items on the menu. There are 12 seats in "L" configuration and an easy to read menu on the machine. The beef and fish-based medium brownness broth also had a medium level of richness with no fat but as I said it tasted a bit thin. The noodles were also extremely thin too. It was a bit expensive for what you get but hey this is Jiyugaoka. It's also right next to/under an interesting gyoza place with good take-out and eat in gyoza (takeout are yakigyoza only). They also have cabbage, spicy beef miso moyashi and kyuri with miso sauce, all just like Gyoza Lou in Harajuku. There was practically nobody in the place, but the single man behind the counter (of the gyoza place) was still rushing around like a madman.

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