Tamayakata/Tachikawa
たま館/立川
Tamayakata is a ramen theme park (more like just 4 shops crammed into a big garage) in Tachikawa, about 5-10 mins walk east from the station, out the south exit. They threw a bunch of fake bamboo into the place too, not sure what they were trying to make it look like (another definition for "yakata" or "kan" is palace). The interior is nothing to scream about, not like the Ramen Square much nearer the station. The shop I picked today was Inosho, a place that usually specializes in tonkotsu gyoukai. The reason I went to this shop today was their special limited time gentei menu item called tsuke-inoji (つけイノジ) was out of the ordinary. This is a clever combination of hiyashi-chuuka (cold noodles with vegetables), cold grilled pork cuts, and Ramen Jiro-style tonkotsu shoyu broth with a lot of moyashi in it. This combination works suprisingly well. The broth is extremely fatty, a slight amount of togarashi, with the pure Jiro taste (even though this place is not a Ramen Jiro). The noodles are fairly thick and home made. The only problem with the fat that was ladled on top of the broth, it had some of those stringy sinewy bits in it that I could have done without. Once I got those out of the way, dipping the pork (there are 3 different cuts) into the broth along with the noodles was quite excellent. Sort of like a Jiro tsukemen thing.
Tamayakata Home Page
Inosho Home Page
Google Maps