Ramen Jiro/Mejirodaiラーメン 二郎/めじろ台

 

Only three more Jiros to go to after this one, since they just added a new one in Tachikawa. The Mejirodai Jiro is in Hachioji City, a fair distance from the loop. You have to take the Keio Honsen (the Takaosanguchi branch) and then get off at Mejirodai. To do this you can take whatever the next express is to Kitano, then switch to the local to Takaosanguchi, or they do have a Special Express (no change of trains) that goes from Shinjuku to Takaosanguchi, and Mejirodai is the stop before Takaosanguchi. After you get to Mejirodai you can take the 05 (グリーンヒル寺田) or 06 (法政大学) bus, you will see the yellow sign on the right after about 10 minutes, the closest bus stop is Harunabashi (榛名橋はるなばし), there is a small river and bridge right next to the shop. If it looks like you are going into a forested mountain area then you have gone too far. Each bus line in Tokyo seems to do things a bit differently, but with this bus line you get on in the back and swipe your Suica card, then when you get off you swipe your Suica card again. At 1 PM on a Saturday there were about 10 people on line. The service is very fast at this Jiro as there were three people behind the counter. In order to get the tsukemen you have to buy the correct chip for the base ramen size/style that you want, and then add a 150yen chip for the tsukemen. This is a lot of food. When it comes you may be a bit scared by the amount of noodles but there will be a bamboo support under it to suspend it about 1/2" off the bottom of the bowl, I believe this is done to allow the water to drain underneath. Presumably you get more noodles and broth for that extra price. The broth is quite similar to the Nishi Shinjuku Ramen Jiro except with a significantly higher percentage of onions and much less suspended fat and surface oil. The pork was very good cuts, not too fatty, and some of the thickest that I have had recently (3/4" or so). The noodles were the size of thick linguine, but you have to ask for them to be katame. The veggies were about 50/50 between moyashis and cabbage and the cabbage had quite a large amount of the larger greener leaves in it. Not too convenient unless you live in the area but definitely one of my top Jiro experiences.

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Local directions once you get to Mejirodai
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Taishoken/Higashi Ikebukero大勝軒/東池袋

 

This is the new Taishoken in Higashi Ikebukero that opened in February to much acclaim, and to some, rather unexpectedly. The original Higashi Ikebukero Taishoken was finally knocked down last year (after one stay of execution if memory serves) to make way for one of the usual glass and concrete monstrosities. The founder of Taishoken and the supposed inventor of tsukemen, Yamagishi-san, sits outside this restaurant on days both cold and not-so-cold, chatting with customers and greeting them with a "domo, ki o tsukete" when they exit. Someone behind me on line who presumably didn't know who he was asked him to make change for a 10000 yen note. You can see Yamagishi-san on the left of one of the pictures above. Occasionally while I was waiting a customer or two asked to have his or her picture taken with him. I've walked past this place two or three times since the opening but didn't have the time to stop and try it until today, the line has been 20-30 people long each time. Well I am glad to say that the line moves quite quickly actually, an average of one person every 1-2 minutes I think. Be sure to get your ticket *before* you get on line, I had the mori chashu (もりちゃーしゅう, middle ticket on top row) which is a quite sweet tsukemen broth (from yuzu I believe) with a medium-sized helping of glassy light-colored noodles that sort of look like spaghetti but are much softer after cooking. All Taishoken's broths taste like this. Probably one of the sweeter broths around. A few menmas and negis and half of a boiled egg also, but that's it. There were only two pieces of chashu in the bowl and they were decent, but for the price (1000 yen) I think there could have been a bigger portion, I guess that explains why people were coming in and out so fast. The interior of the place is nice, newly constructed, 11-12 seats at the counter and 4 or 5 tables for 2, with photographs and hand-drawn pictures of Yamagishi-san and the old original Taishoken on the walls. If the line here is too long you could always walk down the back street to Kuro Nabe. The Taishoken on the other side of Ikebukero Station and the one next to Ikebukero Jiro serve roughly the exact same dish with crowds but no serious line, people are coming here for the novelty factor. I think Taishoken is good food and I give it a recommended rating based on this, however I can't say that it is the best tsukemen in Tokyo.

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DaiDai/Jiyugaoka豚骨世界 大大/自由が丘

 

DaiDai's full name is "Tonkotsu Sekkai Dai Dai", meaning "the big-big/best-best pork bone world". Jiyugaoka is a very nice place to visit on a weekend, there are many nice shops and restaurants and it is fairly upscale. Not really known for its ramen though but this shop is a standout. After about a 15-20 minute wait outside I had the 1000 yen niku mori 肉盛り (lots of meat) tsukemen and to my surprise the grilled pork was actually done yakuniku-style: 7 or 8 thin strips of marbled fatty pork that must have been marinated in a light sauce and a touch of pepper prior to grilling. Extremely tender and tasty. The broth was very similar to Tetsu's, pork and fish blend, same thickness but with a lighter taste. This store is affiliated with the Setagaya chain, which includes Hirugao, Fukumori and a store in New York City I believe. The counter was quite spacious, they could have easily fit another person or two in between the 7 or us, and like Fukumori there is also a separate shoes-off zashiki (sitting on the floor) area for several people, presumably for families and kids. A good way to end a day of shopping in Jiyugaoka or recharge for a second round.

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Ippudo/Ebisu一風堂/恵比寿

  

What Tokyo ramen site would be complete without mentioning Ippudo. The Ebisu Ippudo (technically it is in Hiroo) is a branch of a well-known Hakata-style tonkotsu ramen chain, actually that chain's first branch in Tokyo. They have a broth that is not *extremely* fatty but still has a rich taste (it is very salty though). Since I work near the Ebisu branch I find myself in there (with my coworkers) for lunch about once or twice a month. At this and pretty much all Ippudo locations that I have been to, you get free spicy moyashi, karashi takana (spicy greens) and shoga at your table to eat on your rice or on your ramen. The Ippudo shiromaru or akamaru lunch sets (ramen, gyoza and all-you-can-eat rice), for 750 yen at the Ebisu shop, are probably one of the best deals in town, along with the special "African tea" pitchers at each table. The akamaru is a slightly stronger flavor, I recommend the shiromaru but they are not that different. My personal recommendation is to ask for the noodles to be "katame" (somewhat firm), although you can get them extremely hard "harigane". A couple of months ago they also introduced an "ultimate" version of the akamaru, called kiwami shin-aji, with some suspended egg in the broth, a bigger portion, and a side dish consiting of a strange cube of a miso-like substance which I believe was meant to be mixed into the broth to your own taste. This ultimate version was 1300 yen and was good but wasn't worth the extra cost IMO. Also the waitstaff at this location is used to foreigners and is very friendly, although they are very rushed too. Chances are you will wait on line if you go between 12 and 1 PM. If you are visiting Tokyo for the first time and you only have time to go to one ramen shop while you are here, this would be my recommendation.

Also of recent interest is the announcement that Ippudo will be opening a branch in NYC: http://intertrend.com/wordpress/?p=387

2008-03-16 - UPDATE - Ippudo has switched to slightly smaller platform bowls (agesoko?, third picture above) so the base soup amount has gone down, and the price also recently went up to 850 yen. And they don't give you a stick of gum anymore. However everything that was tabehoudai before still is (rice and veggies), and it looked like the buta slices were a bit bigger and thicker. Still my area recommendation though.

2008-3-28 - ANOTHER UPDATE - Here is the flyer that they are handing out in Tokyo to advertise the opening of the new Ippudo in New York City:



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MenYa Zeroshiki/Iidabashi麺屋零式/板橋

 

This ramen shop is about a 10 minute walk from Shin-Iidabashi station on the Toei Mita line. There was about a 20-25 minute wait, inside the store, no chairs, and this was on a Sunday. The store is 10-11 seats and was almost completely full of teenage boys in blue blazers, probably returning from Sunday cram school. The "zero" kanji in "Zeroshiki" actually means zero (0), and shiki means "ceremony". Not sure what the two of them together means, my dictionaries didn't have a compound like this. I will have to ask at work to see if anyone knows there. The man behind the counter is a very intense younger guy working alone and really hustling. Very firmly asking customers to wait and filing their orders carefully on the wall above him. Some good pictures of the regular tsukemen are here. You can see the thick noodles similar to Tetsu's noodles, for example. I actually had the zeroshiki tsukesoba (零式 つけそば) which was a tsukemen-type dish, with larger amounts of veggies but not a lot of pork, with close to a Jiro taste. This is limited to only a set number of bowls per day, and it took about 10 minutes to prepare due to the very thick noodles. It included two boiled quail eggs, and one of those really long strange pointy mushrooms (6" long) so be sure to specify if you don't want those. The noodles were fairly thick and rectangular cut, I recommend getting them katame in this case.

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Ramen Jiro/Hibarigaokaラーメン二郎/ひばりヶ丘

 

Crossed another Ramen Jiro off my list today, we are now down to 4 left. But the trips are getting longer and longer and I don't know what I will do about the one in Tochigi-ken. In any case on the recent advice from some other bloggers I traveled out to the Hibarigaoka Ramen Jiro. I made sure to leave very early in the morning so that I could be there at or near the opening time as this Ramen Jiro has a reputation for very long lines. When I got there (around 11:30) the line was about 10 people long outside (there's a rickety old bench outside that I didn't dare sit on) and it was full inside already. A man and woman team were hurriedly tossing ramen and pork around behind the counter. No tsukemen at this Jiro. In this branch, the oil seems to blend with the broth somehow in some strange and marvelous way, so that you do not have the soup on the bottom and then 1/2 inch of oil on top. Very rich taste, without that many suspended fat chunks, and that taste goes well with the very thin noodles. The pork was very good and cut into smaller chunks. The only question was "ninniku iremasu ka"? It's a bit cramped near the ticket and water machines, be sure to bring a drink or get water on your way in. If you are waiting outside listen carefully as you have to listen for the guy to call you in. Go there.

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Hong Hu Jiao Zi Fang/Futako Tamagawa紅虎餃子房/二子玉川

 

We stopped into Hong Hu Jiao Zi Fang Chinese Restaurant after shopping a bit at Garden Island in Futako Tamagawa. This chain from Kiwa Group has a number of locations throughout Japan, several in Tokyo. The walls of the Futako Tamagawa have Chinese motifs on them. The Peking black vinegar sauce pork was one of the most incredible dishes of this type that we have ever had. The pork was cooked until you could cut it with a fork, moist with no gristle. The vegetable ramen was quite tasty, frequently some places throw a bunch of veggies into a simple chicken stock and call it vegetable ramen, however this tasted a level up from that and the noodles were ample, this is a dish for two people to share. We also ordered the sanratan (hot + sour soup) and that was made with white vinegar when most places make it with dark vinegar I think. Not too crowded at 3 PM on a Friday afternoon. They have an excellent menu with pictures and both English and Japanese descriptions and everything is very reasonably priced. The service was quick and friendly. Definitely a good way to start or end a day of shopping near Futako Tamagawa station.

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Ivan Ramen/Minami Kurasuyamaアイバンラーメン/南烏山

 

I saved my 100th review for Ivan Ramen, a very enjoyable shop in Minami Kurasuyama in Setagaya-ku, about 5 minutes walk from Rokakoen Station on the Keio Line. Ivan Ramen is a ramen shop run by Ivan Orkin, an American from New York who has been living in Japan for a long time. Ivan Ramen is the only ramen shop in Tokyo that I am aware of that is run by a non-Japanese person. (There are a couple shops run by celebrities of mixed heritage but they are a separate review.) On a cold, cold Saturday afternoon in February I was finally able to get out there after reading about him in the Wall Street Journal, hearing the reports on NPR, and various mentions on other people's blogs. When I got there, there was already a line of 10-15 people outside the shop. This is really impressive after only 7 months of operation. Frequently, ramen shops, even in more centrally-located areas, take a year or more to get famous and profitable.

I had the chashu slow roasted garlic mazesoba. Maze (mah-zay) means "mix", and the mazesoba is noodles mixed with a small amount of thick soup. While the ingredients are different (e.g. compared to a place like Junk Garage), the basic idea is the same - to have a small amount of soup to flavor the noodles. In a certain sense then mazesoba is halfway between regular ramen and tsukemen. The garlic flavor was well-balanced, not too overpowering, and the leek onion topping with a clove of roasted garlic on top complemented it nicely. Other customers in the store ordered other things in addition to ramen, some of the pork and tomato meshi bowls looked exceptionally good and I will get them on my next visit. I was able to chat with Ivan for a few minutes before leaving. He's a very friendly guy who clearly enjoys making and eating ramen and chats and jokes around with both his customers and employees. Having worked in New York City (as he has) and the surrounding areas for a large part of my adult life, I can tell you that this type of positive attitude towards your product and your customers is great to see anywhere. It's also good to see that he supports other local businesses by buying local ingredients and participating in the community.

Please visit Ivan Ramen and show your support for him and his delicious ramen!

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Benten/Takadanobabaべんてん/高田馬場

 

Benten is located on a corner location right next to the Kanda River in Takadanobaba. It was always ranked as one of the most popular shops in the area, including still being ranked within the top 10 tsukemen places in Tokyo in magazines within the last few month, and I can remember the lines being extremely long at one point. This trip (my first) was actually on a cold evening so perhaps that had something to do with the fact that there was a line of only one or two people. Note that the line sometimes starts in front of the store but then continues across the street. Inside the store is quite cramped and informal. There is no ticket machine, you order directly from the cooking staff when you sit down. Benten's claim to fame appears to be the large volume. The default noodle size is 350g, but you can get 650g or even 1000g (2.2 lbs of noodles) if you want. Perhaps these large volumes are because the shop is so close to Waseda University and all of the hungry college students. It's also not too far from a good Chinese/Singaporean restaurant that my wife and I have been to: Big Land's Tree. The noodles are Taishoken-style, the lighter-color kind that goes well with a lighter dipping sauce. The dipping sauce was a decent pork/fish mixture but the big story is that it was crammed full of chopped pork slices, however the menma was already sold out by the time we got there. Normally the chashu menma tsukemen is 1000 yen. I give this store a Recommended rating based on the large volume.

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Kinmaru/Ginza金丸/銀座

 

Within the 23 wards, Ginza is not really known for ramen overall, but it does have a few good shops to write about. Kinmaru is a tonkotsu ramen shop a bit off the beaten path in Ginza, a few blocks away from Chuo-dori. They opened in May of 2007 and their tonkotsu ramen has an excellent tonkotsu taste, some of the best I have ever had. Not too crowded at 1 PM on a cold Saturday afternoon. Ramen Jiro starts with this type of taste, then they add the shoyu to it to make a shoyu tonkotsu blend. If you go to this shop, or a good specialty tonkotsu ramen shop, you will be able to taste the base "Jiro" flavor if you close your eyes and concentrate. In Kinmaru's tonkotsu broth, there were occasional small chunks of suspended fat (abura) that really contribute to the taste. I also taste a bit less salt in this broth than Ippudo's. A chain ramen shop like Ippudo probably filters out the suspended fat chunks due to consistency concerns, e.g. they want every Ippudo to taste the same, however for an individual shop they can really add to the shop's flavor and make a name for it. Kinmaru offers 5 levels of hardness for the noodles (including two "extremely hard" levels) and you can order kaedama (an extra helping of noodles) for 150 yen. The noodles at Kinmaru are a shade thicker than Ippudo's standard style thin tonkotsu Hakata noodles, which are used by many other shops too. The scallions (onions) and menma are also excellent. You can get tsukemen but that dish comes with the regular pork by default. Both kaku-ni (boiled pork belly) and regular chashu are available, and as like at Ippudo, Kinmaru has fresh goma grinders and fresh niniku for crushing into your bowl, be careful with the fresh garlic as that stuff can squirt all over the place.

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Kiwami/Gotanda極/五反田

 

Kiwami is located right under the Yamanote Line bridge in Gotanda, right near the large Tokyu Store south of the station, but you don't really hear anything from the trains once you are inside the shop. However the heater/AC blows right onto the seats near the door, so you are alternately cold and hot. All the other seats look OK though. There's a good selection of magazines and manga inside to the left. I had the "strong tsukemen" (強つけ麺) as advertised on the outside of the shop - the noodles were *very* chewy with a rich light brown color, and quite thick, even for tsukemen noodles. Thickness similar to Tetsu. The broth was a lot like Kookai's, very rich, almost creamy tonkotsu taste with a lot of that powdered pork stuff, very coarsely ground so it affected the texture of the broth a lot. The amount of noodles was a bit small so I would probably get the chou size (中) instead of the futsu (普) next time, there are ticket buttons on the machine outside for all three sizes. The chashu was very good too with very little fat. Containers of free zasai + red shoga were on the counter. They have a ramen and rice/shumai set for 750 for lunch that most of the customers were getting. The ramen and tsukemen dishes come with 1/2 boiled egg by default.

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Junk Garage/Osakiジャンクガレッジ/大崎

  

Junk Garage is known for a very different style of ramen, more of a "bunch of stuff in a bowl" style, as you can see from the pictures. We arrived at about 6:30 PM and there was a line of about 10 people already. There are 7 seats, interesting wood paneling on the counter and and lots of porn under it. Junk Garage is only open in the evenings, starting at 6 PM. It's right next to the famous Rokurinsha (六厘舎), which closes at 4:30. You have to be very careful standing on line as the cars come down that street very tightly, the store staff comes out every few mins to take your tickets and remind people to stay behind the orange cones. The base style that the shop is known for is the mazesoba (ma-zeh, まぜそば), that's firm noodles with a bit of oil and just a small amount of soup in the bottom of the bowl, similar to shiru nashi (汁なし) style or abura soba (油そば). And it had some coarse-ground black pepper on it, just a perfect amount, and the noodles were done perfectly. There were some noodles of a thinner width in the bowl but they were mostly thick, almost as thick as the chopsticks as you can see from the picture. They have ramen too, and it is prepared in a manner very close to the Jiro style. The set of available toppings is slightly different for ramen vs. mazesoba, and you can see a picture of the toppings menu below. By default for the mazesoba you get a raw egg on top (actually the yolk only), so be sure to tell them if you don't want that. The default amount of garlic was a little small, perhaps get ninniku mashi. However you can only get yasai with the ramen, not with the mazesoba. Free tissues on top of the ticket machine round out the deal. Somewhat different and very impressive.

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Kino/Ookayama基乃/大岡山

 

Ramen Kino is about 5 mins walk southwest from Ookayama Station on the Tokyu Meguro and Tokyu Oimachi lines. It's a small shop with 8 seats at a counter and two very small tables for two. Again this is a very good shop that serves excellent Jiro-like ramen and tsukemen dishes. You can come here and get practically the same exact taste of Ramen Jiro without having to wait on line for 1/2 hour or more at a real Ramen Jiro, not that I have anything against doing that though. There were a couple of free seats in the place when I stopped by, early on a Sunday afternoon. They also have miso-based dishes and a smaller ramen dish, for children I guess. I ordered the shouyu tonkotsu tsukemen with extra chashu and I am pleased to say that this shop comes as close to the true Ramen Jiro taste as just about any other Jiro-like shop I have been to. I ordered "ninniku yasai mashi" which included a large helping of extra veggies as you can see from the picture, since I don't think I've been eating enough vegetables lately. The noodles were more yellow in color than many Ramen Jiro noodles are, but they were very springy and tasty and decently sized (I got the regular size dish, not the omori, it's the same price for more noodles I believe). The yasai were mostly moyashi but there was some cabbage in there, perhaps 80-20. The pork was very good, but thinner-sliced than most Ramen Jiros, but about the same fat/meat level. There were two more slices than you see in the picture, I put them into my soup bowl before I snapped the pic. A TV in the corner was showing various Japanese Sunday news programs. I can definitely recommend Ramen Kino.

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AIUEO/Meguroあいうえお/目黒

  

I've often passed by this shop over the last couple of years and always meant to stop in, but never had the time. So I found the time over the New Year's holiday this year as AIUEO was one of the few ramen shops that was open this week. AEIUO specializes in shio ramen and they do a very good job of it. I met and chatted with Tanaka-san (田中さん), the very friendly and enthusiastic proprietor of the shop. (Here's a link to his YouTube video site, with videos about his shop and the ramen business). Tanaka-san's English was probably better than my Japanese, and between the two of us we had a nice conversation about ramen and the Japanese New Year holidays. The shio-flavor butter-garlic ramen is very rich and has a good garlic and butter flavor without being too strong. I recommend getting the chuo-mori size for a very generous portion of noodles. Next time I plan to try the chashumen. Until November of 06, AIUEO also sold a dish (on Wednesdays only) called 三郎, it's a dish that was similar to the Meguro Ramen Jiro's ramen. (The Meguro Ramen Jiro is closed in Wednesdays). I definitely recommend that you stop by AIUEO if you are in the area.

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Gyoza No Ohsho/Togoshi Ginza餃子の王将/戸越銀座

 

Salarymen are almost invariably a good indication of where the best and cheapest places are to eat, especially for lunch. Along the Togoshi Ginza shopping street, just as you go past Tokyu Togoshi Ginza station going west, there is a medium sized shop called Gyoza No Ohsho (= "King of Gyoza"), that had a fair number of salarymen waiting outside around lunchtime yesterday. Gyoza No Ohsho is a large nationwide chain of inexpensive Chinese restaurants (including at least 30 branches just in Tokyo and a couple in mainland China). The restaurant chain operates on a principle of providing better food at lower cost than its competitors, and they have a large kitchen and a fairly wide-ranging menu. I would say that the lunch-time set specials are an excellent value. I ordered the Tokyo Ramen lunch set, including a smaller bowl of shoyu ramen with chashu, 6 decent-sized gyoza and some fried rice (chahan). The pork-and-veggie gyoza were amazingly good for 200 yen (what they cost a la carte), and they are hand made by a guy behind the counter in-between his grill cooking duties. The pork in the ramen was not a bad cut but quite thin, the noodles were premade of course but decent. The chahan had no meat in it and was the size of a large ice cream scoop but for a total of about 860 yen this was a very filling lunch for the price.

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Tsukemen Marukami/MinamiKarasuyamaつけ麺 まるかみ/南烏山

 

Tsukemen Marukami is right near the Chitose-Karasuyama station on the Keio Line (not the New Keio Line), walk south about two minutes when coming out of the south exit. You will actually see a sign for it on the back side of one of its neighbor buildings, before you turn the corner onto the shop's street. The shop was very clean and orderly and well-run, even though there appeared to be some training of new staff going on during my visit. I had the 320g yasai soba (野菜そば) with three slices of extra chashu (total 1000yen), a hot dish which was actually like ramen, only with significantly less broth in the bowl, just enough to stir everything around in and get it coated. Good volume for the price. If you get the tsukemen instead, smaller and larger portions are available for the same price. Better pictures of all the dishes are available in the link below. The noodles were like thin spaghetti only darker and firmer. The broth was very much like the Shinjuku Ramen Jiro broth - the basic Jiro taste but with a lot less suspended fat and a stronger salty and slightly spicy taste. The yasais were evenly distributed between moyashi and cabbage, and several other types of veggies were available on the ticket machine, including scallions (わけぎ), something you don't see that often as a choosable topping. Fresh crushed garlic was available on the counter. The pork slices were a bit on the small side but well-done. No line at 11:30 AM on the Saturday before New Year's.

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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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Kohmen/Ebisu光麺/恵比寿

 

Kohmen has always been one of my long-time favorite chains, for the quality of its pork, broth and noodles. I've been to several branches in Tokyo including Kabukicho, Akihabara (Yodobashi Camera) and Ebisu. I see it as a direct competitor (in the tsukemen area) to Kookai, also another excellent chain. The Ebisu branch of Kohmen is smaller on the first floor than many other ramen shops (a long chain of counter seats) but they have an interesting second floor, it consists of rows of seats set up stadium-style in front of a 60" plasma television showing commercials and movie trailers for American movies (dubbed in Japanese). Never a missed opportunity for marketing here... There is always a fair wait here around lunch time. I had the 全部のせ つけ麺 with extra chashu (charcoal-grilled pork). You can also get (as a "side", not a topping) the 炭火梅塩豚トロ - charcoal-grilled plum+salt favored toroniku, this is really fatty but really good. For the tsukemen, the noodles are more like linguine or fettucine in consistency and size. Like all branches, this place gives you a decent-size glass of water with ice, and plenty of it. Definitely recommended that you stop into some Kohmen branch and give it a try. There's also one in Harajuku.

Ebisu branch
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Fukumori/Nozawaふくもり/野沢

 

Fukumori is in Setagaya-ku, Nozawa about 10 mins from Komazawa DaiGaku station on the Tokyu Denentoshi line. The shop is big and clean, with four tables of various sizes, a small counter, a large screen TV in the corner and a variety of ramen magazines to read. There is a Japanese style room in the back with floor tables for families etc., you will of course have to take off your shoes if you want to sit in there. I had the 肉ふくもり - the niku fukumori, a tsukemen-style dish with chashu chunks in a pork/fish blend that was heavily biased towards fish and was slightly kotteri (thick/rich). The handmade noodles here were very good, (if a bit slippery), quite thick and were rectangular in cross-section. Due to the way the noodles are made and cooked, there can be a 10 minute wait or more to be served after you sit down, a small card on the table explains his. The portion size was also quite good, with a decent amount of chashu and some kamaboku in the broth. They also have an interesting menma side dish that you can order, menma topped with what looks like buta hiki niku (ground pork) and onions, that looked good on the table next to me. The shop was extremely busy and I'm not surprised since this taste was really good. Just down the street from Fukumori is the famous Setagaya ramen shop also. FWIW there are buses that come up this street from Meguro-dori also I believe.

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Ramen Jiro/Musashi Koganeiラーメン二郎/武蔵小金井

  

Again one of the best Ramen Jiro adventures ever. Possibly exceeded only by the Hachijoji Ramen Jiro. I'll explain more about that below. Like the Hachijoji Ramen Jiro, this Ramen Jiro has a good tsukemen dish, however since it was sort of cold in the metropolis today very few people were getting it. Although some fan sites indicate that this shop has both single and double (W) buta options, there was no W buta on the ticket machine menu. And actually this shop has a different, more computerized style of ticket machine that has a video display and spits out paper tickets. After putting the coins or bills in (1000 yen bills only), you dial the number of the order that you want (in this case the shou tsukemen with pork was #19), and then hit the flashing green button to print out your ticket. This shop has a narrow counter with a line of waiting seats right behind it, and a table for 4 in the back. The shou was quite large and I was worried that I wasn't going to finish it. You can order the noodles in amounts of either 300g or 150g, same price. By default the dishes are served with a small amount of yasai, mostly cabbage, but you can request more, as well as extra abura, ninniku or spicyness.

This shop is about a 20 minute walk from Musashi Koganei station on the JR Chuo line, approximately 40 mins west of Shinjuku. Walking to the shop is nice, there are a number of interesting houses with well-tended gardens, and some plant and flower shops along the way, but if you don't want to walk then I recommend that you take the Keio #31 bus from the station, and then get off at the プール前 stop (Pool Front), the cost is 170 yen. At this Ramen Jiro they had an advertisement in front for the new Ramen Jiro that is opening up in Tochigi prefecture. A picture of it is above. The portion was very big as I mentioned. The noodles were on the thin side for a Ramen Jiro, however they were done perfectly without me having to ask for them to be done katame. The pork was a very rough and flavorful cut with the amount being equal to a W in some other shops, but with relatively little fat. The ninniku default amount was about 1 heaping tablespoon. Definitely recommended.

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