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.

Google Maps
Tabearuki Page

TenMen/Higashi Nakano情熱らあめん 天麺/東中野

 

Jounetsu ("passion") Ramen TenMen - not a huge amount to write here. Decent Yokohama-style ramen in the area around JR Higashi Nakano Station. Large portions and the pork was decent. Fair amount of garlic already in the soup, and the liquid fat comes to the top pretty easily. Cabbage, moyashi and sesame already added. Not too many people in the shop though for a Saturday. Almost no ranking on Supleks for whatever reason.

Google Maps
Supleks Page

Jiraigen/Nakano地雷源/中野

   

About a 1 month back-up on reviews, as you can probably tell from the sakura trees in the above photo, looking north on Nakano Dori. This is what the place in Ebisu should have been, if it wanted to stick with the shoyu thing. Latest creation from the Jiragen people, who started off in Honancho IIRC. Even richer broth, well-grilled pork with texture and flavor, and excellent store-made noodles. For the tsukemen, it is available in both shoyu and shio flavors. Good ranking on Supleks. The inside and outside of the shop are made up to look like some sort of jazz club or soul food diner, and there is a liberal amount of English signage around, but not so much on the ticket machine. Shop is a bit loud due to the layout, the cramped conditions, and the fact that there were 4 people working there that day. 2 tables for 4 upstairs I believe. No real fixed vacation day. I believe this place moved from its original location in Honancho (Marunouchi Line) to become this chain's new "hon ten". Worth it if you are in the area but would not make a special trip.

Shop Home Page
Google Maps

Kaeru/NakanoKaeru/中野

 

Good Poppoya clone - the tennushi is a veteran of Poppoya in Yushima. The place is in an area of Nakano near Nakano Broadway known as ふれあいロード or Fureai Road. Probably 5-10 other ramen shops within 3 mins walking distance from here including a branch of Aoba. All sorts of other interesting shops around here too, this place is probably worth a couple hours of exploring time. Very simple menu - ramen, tsukemen or abura men. Very oniony and garlicky and salty broth. Various free toppings as you can see on the pictures on the link below. Not clear here whether Kaeru means "come back/go back" or "frog" as there are no kanji that I can see.

Saito Blog
Google Maps

Menya Shichisai麺や七彩/都立家政

 

This is my first review for any place in Nakano-ku. Several ramen shops in the Tokyo area change from one type of shop at lunch time to another type at night, sometimes going so far as to change menus, soup styles, shop names, even in some cases changing from a ramen shop to an izakaya, etc. This phenomenon is covered in Ishiiyama-san's latest issue of his annual ramen guide here. It's referred to as nimosaku, which means twice at once or "two crops a year". The name of this shop in the evening is Edoama (江戸甘) and they make a mean-looking black abumata miso ramen using beef fat with a pork loin cut. Other shops that do this night-time day time thing are Black Friday and Atago. During the day, the shop is known as Shichisai and I had their shio Kitakata chashumen style. This shop was also recently ranked by Isshukan magazine as one of the best of 2008 in their annual best ramen issue. It's standard style through and through, a salty clear soup (shouyu is also available, with a similar clear thin broth), thicker curly/wavy noodles, and thin matchbook sized slices of pork that had a lot of flavor and suprisingly little fat (a bit pink in the middle though), both momo and bara cuts are used. The overall taste is like Bannai, but better (and Bannai isn't too bad for a chain either). Definitely a generous portion of noodles, the 300 was enough for me. You will have to get your own water when you go in, and the guy will ask you what size noodles you want before you sit down. On the small bookshelf next to the water machine there's a lot of ramen mags and above the bookshelf there is a small shelf selling Thai noodles and various Thai saurces. I get the sense from watching these guys cook the noodles and the soup that they are really hard core ramen guys.

Nengu Ramen page
Google Map