2009-04-26

Naoji/Meguro
なおじ/目黒

 

The shop Naoji was in, was formerly a tonkotsu-ramen-only specialty place - down the street going west from JR Meguro station, on the northern branch, past the K-Port drug store and about half-way between Youshu Shonin and Ikeda Tsukemen. Naoji has a very thick tonkotsu gyokai broth, the consistency of ketchup - almost like a stew broth. Maybe with a bit of chicken in it too. The characters 濃厚 "noukou" - means dense and rich - are shown in various places in the store. A coworker said that "naoji" might be a colloquial expression for "old uncle", but he wasn't 100% sure. There were some chopped onions on top. This is a relatively new store, came on line at about the end of last year. The noodles were served firm and dry - like day old cold spaghetti, sort of, but you can get them also as atsumori. There were several huge menmas in the bowl too, very nice. Very thick broth, and this was true for both the tsukemen and the chuuka soba. Fairly plain interior, the ticket machine is on the right. You can get up to 500g of noodles if you want. They have an interesting item on the menu, called the beef or chashu hokuji - it's actually like a little beef or pork meatball that sort of falls apart when it is in the bowl, and I guess you are meant to mix it up in the broth. Recommended but understand first how thick the broth is.

Here's a picture of the full menu:



It wasn't so crowded at 2 PM in the afternoon - but the problem is that the taste, while good, was not a strong as others in this genre, like Hachijoji's Aika. Good place and it is interesting to point out that this is the only tonkotsu gyokai place in the Ebisu/Meguro Yamanote line area.

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