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.

Shirasu Ramen Diary
Diddlefinger Map (English labels)
Google Map

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.

Shop home page (Kiwa Group)
Tabelog page
Diddlefinger Map (English labels)
Google Map

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!

Ivan Ramen homepage
Livedoor Gourmet page
Diddlefinger Map (English labels)
Google Map

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.

Shirasu No Ramen page
Diddlefinger Map (English labels)
Google Map

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.

Livedoor Gourmet Page
Balocco web page
Diddlefinger Map (English labels)
Google Map

Ichiban/Umegaoka一番 胤暢番/梅ヶ丘

 

This casual little place right across from the north exit (北口) of Umegaoka station on the Odakyu Odawara line has all the looks of a "neighborhood" ramen shop, the kind of place where everybody knows your name, etc. On a relatively cool August Saturday afternoon, a college baseball game was playing on the little TV above the beer fridge, with several 20-something guys watching intently as they chowed down. The chashu tsukemen here was very good, with a broth that was not sweet at all and tasted more to me like beef broth than pork or fish, this is the first time in memory I have seen that. The broth can be ordered spicy (karai) but I asked for it to be not spicy. The noodles looked homemade and were fairly thin for tsukemen noodles as you can see from the picture so I recommend you order them katame or else they might be overcooked for you. What looked like a husband and wife team were intently scurrying around behind the counter grilling pork and cooking noodles. The chashu was grilled up and cut into smaller chunks and placed in the soup. It also looked like it had been marinated in some sort of shoyu blend for a while as it had a thick, slightly sweet coating on it. The regular "futsu" portion or noodles was rather small so I suggest you get the omori large size if you are hungry. There's no ticket machine in this shop, you will pay them when you leave.

Amaojisan review (more pictures)
Diddlefinger Map (English labels)
Google Map

MachiBo/Nozawaまっち棒/野沢

 

MachiBo seems to be a more-frequent-than average name for ramen shops in Japan, I have to research that. FWIW Matchibo is the name of a small town in Chiba-ken, all the way on the other side of Tokyo Bay. No clue whether this or any other ramen shop called MachiBo is named for it though. In any case at first glance if you look at the pictures this shop would appear to be a member of the Ramen Jiro-like category, but upon closer inspection it is not. A short wait (10 mins) on a Saturday afternoon at about 2 PM. There's a counter with about 10 seats and then several 2-seat tables in the back which can be moved to create tables for 4. Funny thing though is that the place is done up in all modern black but wasn't lit that well, and the aircon was average. So I ordered the usual chashu tsukemen. After being seated, I was asked whether thick noodles ("futoi" or 太い) would be OK, to which I answered yes. Then I asked for them to be katame. The service was very quick and polite. The noodles weren't really what I would call katai/katame, at least not in the Ramen Jiro sense of the word. The chashu was good-tasting but it was the thin-sliced kind, not the thick-sliced or chunk kind. The moyashis and cabbage were OK and in reasonable quantity. The broth though is where it really started to differ from Ramen Jiro. It was the same visually, with the light brown color and suspended abura, however it did not have the same taste as Ramen Jiro, not even close. It was actually sort of similar to the Kookai chain's main tsukemen broth. I think it might have been fish-based. It was certainly good, but I think they held back on the shoyu, salt and pepper a bit. They also provided quite a bit of nori on top of the noodles so if you don't want nori be sure to say "nori nuki".

Shop Home Page
Amaoji-san review + more pictures
Google Map

Din Tai Fung/Tamagawa鼎泰豊/玉川

The Tamagawa Din Tai Fung is inside the Tamagawa Takashimaya, north and across the street (Tamagawa Dori) from Futako-Tamagawa station on the Tokyu Denentoshi and Oimachi lines. Tamagawa/Futako-Tamagawa is a busy area on the weekends with many people shopping, eating and walking around. We have enjoyed the Shinjuku Din Tai Fung whenever we went there so we decided to try the one in Tamagawa and also stop by to visit the Takashimaya. Luckily for us there was no line to get into the restaurant, at about 3 PM on a Sunday. My wife and I each had an order of xiao long bao, the really good dumplings with savory juice inside. I also had the suratanmen (think hot + sour soup with noodles) while my wife had the braised beef noodle soup, an unusual dish for a Chinese restaurant in Tokyo. The mark of a good suratanmen IMO is the amount and kind of black pepper used in it. The suratanmen at Youshou Shonin gets my vote for best in Tokyo, with this in second place. The service is very attentive and quick. Din Tai Fung isn't a ramen shop per se, it's a Chinese restaurant that happens to have a lot of good noodle soup dishes on the menu.

On the first floor of the Takashimaya is a large area with many comfy-looking leather chairs to sit it, a rarity in Tokyo. Also on the 6th floor there is a very nice (and large) rooftop garden, with various art works, benches, plants, flowers and a little cafe. This rooftop garden is actually bigger than some of the public parks we have been to in Tokyo.

Web Site (w/Locations)
Tamagawa Takashimaya Roof Garden Page
Google Map

Ramen Jiro/Shindaitaラーメン二郎/環七新代田店

At the ShinDaita Ramen Jiro on a Saturday at 5:30 PM there was a line of about 15 people waiting for the place to open. The proprietor hurried out to apologize that things were taking so long. It's very close to the station as you can see from the map, probably the only one that is that close, other than Sakuradai. There was a very thick layer of clear abura on top, perhaps a quarter inch. The veggies were almost all moyashi, very little cabbage. The buta was good but the pieces were rather small, you need to definitely get the hachi-mai ticket from the machine if you want a decent amount of pork. Only one guy behind the counter for whatever reason, so things went slowly. First time I've seen that in a long time in any ramen shop, not just a Jiro. The men are on the thin side, just a shade thicker than #8 spaghetti, and were normally cooked, not katame. No real choice of toppings, just "ninniku wa?" and spicy abura which I can't eat. No spoons or tissues and the only condiment was black pepper. Played a lot of punk-sounding music like Pizza of Death, etc.

ramentokyo.com Ramen Jiro Information Page
Pictures+Address
More Pictures
Google Map