Taifu/Myogadani台風/茗荷谷

 

Taifu is about 10 minutes walk down the slope (going northeast) from Korakuen Station on the Marunouchi line. Korakuen Station is two stops from Ikebukero going east. Very neat and clean shop, very brightly lit interior, 11-12 seats, no tables. Got there just after the Saturday open at 11 AM. I was the second person in the place, however a lot of people started arriving just a few minutes later, probably all locals. The place was full by 11:20. There are a few chairs outside so maybe they get busy enough at times to cause a line. The wait staff was very friendly and helpful. The mase (ma-zay) tsukemen (まぜ つけ麺) was the special at 400g - there are only 20 of these dishes for lunch and dinner each, each day. Although I would imagine that you can ask for a smaller portion if you want, it was a lot of food. This dish contains noodles of two different widths, both fettucine width and thin spaghetti widths. These noodles also were more soba-like in color, a shade darker than regular ramen noodles, and they had a lot of springyness and bite to them. They were served cold and quite wet, however I wasn’t asked whether I wanted them served hot or cold. The slight problem with that was that they were cold enough that they cooled down the broth after only a short while. Normally you would ask for some hot water from the noodle pot to be added to the broth but I was in a rush this time. The broth was like Tetsu’s broth but thinner and a bit less rich, heavier on the fish side I think than on the pork side. It contained small flakes of red pepper in it (just barely enough to taste), a few onions, and cut up pork. The extra pork I ordered was grilled on the outside and then sliced, very good looking cut.

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Tetsu/NishiNipporiつけめん TETSU/西日暮里

   

Tetsu is located about 10 minutes walk southwest from Nishi Nippori station on the JR Yamanote line. At 2 PM on a Saturday there was a line of about 10 people in front, however I have seen it much longer, 30-40 people. The place has 10 seats inside. The ticket machine is actually outside the store, it's that small. I ordered the tsukemen atsumori or "つけあつ". This is a total of 400g of noodles that is delivered in two separate bowls (separate from the dipping broth). The first bowl (200g) is warm noodles in a thin broth made with katsuobushi. The second bowl (200g) contains the same amount of noodles but served cold in no broth, normal tsukemen style. The omori ticket on the machine will bump this total up to 500g (> 1 lb) of noodles. The thick shiru pork and fish dipping sauce was generously portioned - it had a very rich taste and a thick kotteri texture slightly reminiscent of Tenkaippin. This broth was drinkable directly from the bowl, it was that good. The chashu topping that I ordered (250 yen) was cut up and put in the bowl for me. It tasted good but it was then harder to evaluate its fattiness/level of grilling, etc. The noodles were correctly done, slightly katame. But this place also has two small touches that set it apart from other tsukemen shops. One of them is that the hot noodle water ("yu") that you are sometimes offered to heat up your leftover shiru was already on the counter in thermos pitchers, that was convenient, most places bring it to you when they think you need it, in a little cup or pitcher. A more interesting innovation is the yaki-ishii (焼き石) that you will be offered near the end of your meal, pictured in the photograph above. This is a heated rock (actually on closer inspection it might be metal, "tetsu" = iron, although I didn't see the correct kanji 鉄 anywhere, but I'm not sure) that is served to you on a little dish, you then put it in your remaining shiru to keep it hot, it fizzes and bubbles, while you are finishing off your noodles. Definitely recommended.

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