Mukyoku/Nogata無極/野方

    

Good tonkotsu gyoukai at this place - name roughly translates to "no end", "not fixed" or "infinite". Noodles even thicker than the average tonkotsu gyoukai place. The pork was also very good, very fatty pieces approaching tontoro quality. Only food complaint was that the amount of broth was a bit small. Interesting karashi takana on the counter. Unfortunately the good food was spoiled by the atmosphere - this is one of the noisiest places I have ever eaten at in my life. No problem that it's small and narrow - I've eaten in places 1/3 of the size of this. Three of the shop staff stood directly over me for most of my meal and watched me eat every bite. They also bumped into me repeatedly as they shuffled behind me and yelled out commands to each other - the stools were fixed to the floor so I couldn't push mine in any more to get out of their way.

Interestingly enough, when I left, one of the shop staff members ran after me out on the sidewalk and asked me what I thought of the meal, and I gave them roughly the same answer as the above, albeit in slightly less formal and more limited Japanese. They explained that the shop was so small and narrow, to which I then asked why that meant they needed to shout and scream, to which they had no answer, as is usually the case.

Note also that the "ultimate kotteri" version of the broth that you may see buttons for on the ticket machine on some other blogs, has been discontinued (note the white paper covering it up on the overhead menu). This place is related to or part of the Muteppo chain.

This will probably be the last tonkotsu gyoukai place for a while, there's just too many of them now and they all deliver roughly the same thing.

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