Tokyo  ramen  in English  24 by 7
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Ah good to see another ramen place in the old stomping ground. There's also a couple new ones down the other side of Meguro Dori going west past the station but those will have to wait until next time. Nice new clean interior, good Tokyo style shoyu broth. Certainly respectable but not worthy of a special trip. Have included some nostalgic pictures of the old neighborhood. Well-regarded on Supleks.
http://supleks.jp/s/14836.html
Excellent tonkotsu gyokai near Fudomae Station on the Tokyu Meguro Line. This shop opened in April 2011 and is the sister shop of the Yukigaotsuka shop (Ikegami Line) that we reviewed at the end of 2009 and was also a Recommended shop. Same great broth and generous portions, with thicker chunks of fatty pork as you can see from the pictures and a lemon slice to put in about half way through. Come right at the opening and there won't be a large line. I recommend the pictured dish, the Hatsuki niku-tsukemen. (葉月肉つけ麺).
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Supleks Page
Genizm appears to be a sort of shoyu ramen place trying to become a chain. They had two branches at one point, one in Shinjuku 3-chome which is now closed, one in Gotanda. This Gotanda branch is the honten. Possibly also one in Saitama also (which is closed too) but not sure. Their web page as listed on Tabelog is not functional at the moment. At the branch in Gotanda, the single staff member looked at me funny when I entered, and acted a bit suprised to see me, not sure whether it was a foriegner thing or not. There weren't many people in the place so perhaps this is his attitude all the time. The chashu pork was quite tender, fatty and generously proportioned. The noodles and broth were average and the broth was a bit watery. Both ramen and tsukemen are available. The sign outside indicated that 200g, 300g or 400g portions are all available for the same price.
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Tabelog Page
Shop Home Page (broken link)
The tonkotsu gyokai at this place Oraga Noodles has a very chalky and powdery texture, but a respectable taste and thickness. UNfortunately there was not a lot of pork in it, even though I ordered the chashu version. The shop plays a lot of loud Western and Japanese rock music and there were a lot of young couples there. The ticket machine is hidden in the corner to the right when you come in the door. Heartland Beer is on the machine menu but there were out of it, instead they substituted the venerable Orion Draft beer from Okinawa. The thin-like-yakisoba atsumori noodles were not served very wet and they dried up and stuck together more quickly than I would have liked.
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At Shinatetsu in Nakanobu (Tokyu Oimachi Line, Ebaramachi Station), not to be confused with Shinatatsu in Shinagawa, what looks like a husband and wife team work together to create good quality shoyu-blend ramen. They opened in March of 2010. There is no ticket machine so you order at the counter. It was a bit hot inside and narrow, so push your seat all the way in. They have a special dan-dan men this month that I did not try. Crowded at lunch time but no line. Their chashu pork consisted of good juicy cuts that were well-grilled, in a nice clear broth. However the amount of noodles coud have been bigger. The wonton chashu men is also worth a try. It's next to a small but interesting shoten gai. Good but not spectacular. Closed Mondays.
Restaurant Columbo is also highly recommended in Ebaramachi, but you typically need to call ahead for a table.
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Tabelog Page
The first picture above is our brand-spankin'-new safety gates on the platform at JR Meguro Station (Ebisu has them too now IIRC). How lovely. I guess it will help to keep accidents from happening, but not the "human accidents" (人身事故, which are usually but not always very determined jumpers who have had enough of this vale of tears). The second is a cleverly-labeled bag I saw once I got on. Poor Doug, I hope at least he has a happy life.
Fuuten is decent but uninspired Tokyo tonkotsu and tonkotsu gyokai near JR Oimachi Station. On the same street as a few other non-descript ramen places (but the opposite direction), the street that takes you to our friendly Shinagawa Ward Office (which has a really nice bunch of people working there by the way). Very hot inside the ramen shop for an early fall weekday. High counters make it difficult to see what's going on under the hood. Very simple menu on the machine, few choices. Generous amount of pork makes up for it, generous even for chashu-men. Noodles scarce though, however omori or tokumori are available for 100 yen more. Niboshi shio soba also on the menu but I did not partake. In any case there's better in the area.
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Amaojisan Page
Supleks Page
A relatively high ranking on Supleks for this one, seems unduly high to me. This place is in the basement of the restaurant building directly across from the west exit of JR Meguro Station. Go up the steps to the right of the Yoshinoya and then turn in on the left, going down the stairs to the 1st floor instead of up them to the 2nd. This place is almost directly under one of the better but less well-known Indian/Nepalese places in the area (IMO), Laxmi. Goriramen, in addition to clever portmanteau construction, specializes in one thing - miso ramen. Now I am not a big fan of miso ramen and generally avoid it. However I could not let this place that just opened up near my workplace go by without some sort of review. A bit warm inside, they need to turn on the A/C a bit. Really the broth tasted like miso mixed with chicken broth 5 minutes before we walked in the door. Some pork fat artifacts floating too and fro. Generous veggies, mostly moyashi. I do not have as much experience tasting miso ramen so I welcome constructive criticism here. Noodles were the star of the show, very thin and hand made. The pork was thinly-shaved pork that could just as well have come from the Yoshinoya on the street upstairs. Nothing special there at all. No tsukemen, no other special dishes of note. No lunch on Sundays.
Amasan blog page
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Another Jiro clone (name means "pig and barley/wheat"), this time near JR Gotanda station. Very friendly woman with powerful lungs outside guiding people into the shop. The background music was the Beatles. Broth was a bit weak, not like a real Jiro taste, soup was almost clear, not too much fat. Had a nice conversation with one of the other patrons sitting next to me (who spoke pretty good English) about the local area and our work. Pork was fairly dry. Noodles very thin, like linguine. Shoyu tare in the tall brown beer bottle with the dispenser top. Free toppings include tama negi, a bit rare for this type of shop. They also had a gentei curry-topped ramen that actually looked a bit strange in the photo on the wall. The Gotanda area can use a Jiro-themed shop, but we can probably do better than this, especially this close to the one on Yamate Dori. First 10 customers on line every day get free extra pork. Closed on Sundays. Don't rush.
On the way back stopped at the Wired Cafe on the second floor of the Gotanda Atre, above the Seijo Ishii. Internet signal iffy as always there.
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A new (or at least uncommon) idea in ramen - chicken soup, and a pretty good one too. Better than Ramen Zero, in my opinion. This ramen shop Tokyo Tori Soba Tomo specializes in only one kind of broth - chicken. Note that I said chicken, not shio. While shio broth usually comes from chicken stock as a base, this broth is really what I would call "home-style" chicken soup. I believe there might be a bit of tonkotsu in there too, but not sure, as I detected a faint taste of it, and it was super salty and fatty, even fattier than could be expected from just chicken. I got the tori chashu men (鶏チャーシューメン) which comes with five or six slices of chicken breast "chashu", all with the skin on. The chicken that these slices came from must have been well-grilled, and interestingly enough there were also little extra slices of grilled chicken skin in the bowl too, you can see them in the lower left of the bowl. Very small shop, only 8-9 seats, simple menu on the machine. The tori chashu men doesn't come with an egg by default. Definitely better than its rank on Supleks suggests, worth a trip if you are in the area, say for the Ito Yokado or similar.
Supleks page
Men Koi blog (good pics)
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Yes, I do know that I am only supposed to be writing about ramen on this blog. However I sincerely feel that as far as udon shops go, and things that are "ramen-like", this shop deserves a special mention here. This is the first udon shop that I have ever written about. I had a hankering for thick firm udon, not too far from where I live, but I thought my options were basically a) slim and b) none. But I did some searching and I located Fuji Yoshida Udon Marunaga in Ebara, about a 5 minute walk west of Togoshi Ginza and 5 minutes south west from the Gotanda TOC shop. "Fuji Yoshida udon" is first and foremost a style of udon dish that is available in some towns in Yamanashi-ken near Mount Fuji. There are also a couple of companies by that name or similar that make specialized udon and soba. Fuji Yoshida udon (the dish) is comprised of very thick udon noodles (#2 pencil thickness, although sometimes slightly flat in cross-section), not completely cooked through it seems, served in a warm or cold medium thickness meat/shoyu broth with cabbage and meat (frequently chicken) in it, sometimes also onions. There are also various other toppings that people add like raw egg, wakame, etc. The combination of all of these things has an excellent taste and mouthfeel. In terms of mouth feel, the thick noodles, the cabbage etc., the whole thing is not unlike Ramen Jiro. So I found this place in Ebara and hippity-hopped on down there. I can definitely say that the noodles there are very satisfying. They will cook them longer if you you ask, some people may not really like them that al-dente. I am told that occasionally this place will have a line outside, but that might more frequently be in the fall or winter. I had the niku-negi tsuke-udon (肉ねぎつけうどん)- served like tsukemen, with the broth separate. Very tasty and satisfying. This place would make a good start or end to the day after strolling around Togoshi Ginza or shopping at TOC.
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Tabelog page
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Mitsuyado merged with Fujiyama Seimen some time last year. The four locations for this combined chain are now in Nakameguro, Takadanobaba (right near Menya Sou), Musashi Koyama and Kawagoe City in Saitama. This chain is an excellent place for those who desire a high level of noodle customizability, if such a phrase makes sense in any language other than Japanese. Like all other branches, they display the workers making noodles in the window so you can see the freshness and the procedure. There are a large number of different items on the menu. I had the current "special", the national-wheat-made noodle with yuzu tsukemen. Good but quite sweet - the noodles were the color of soba. They have a standard set of condiments - but the big story here is the noodles. Very mochi mochi and tasty. The service was very quick, this is the busiest place I have been to in a long time (there's a recession going on here you know and other places seem to be more empty) - they have two counters and some tables. You can choose your noodle amount, several choices at the same price and you can also choose the level of noodles warmness/coldness. For this shop the ticket machine is outside - the menu is very easy to read. I will say however that the regular tsukemen is a slightly sweeter broth than most others and if you are put off by eating a sweet taste with your noodles then I would say avoid the tsukemen. Also for what it is worth, IMO the Musashi Koyama shotengai is one of the better ones in the south west part of the loop. Very stylish bowls and plates if you are into that sort of thing also.
Shop home page
Supleks page
Ramen Communication blog
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Tsubomi, meaning "flower bud", is a small shop of < 10 seats in Oimachi, going southwest from the station. The broth in this place is a combination of chicken, tonkotsu and shoyu and has an abundance of small onions floating in it. However it has a relatively weak flavor, almost as though it had been watered down to make it very thin - tsukemen broths should be thicker I think. Only this one type is available. However they had very good barley tea in the pitchers. The noodles were homemade and very mochi mochi, the default amount was 250g. The chashu topping gives you 6 slices total. There were also two or three big menmas in the soup. However if you order the tsukemen then I recommend you upgrade the menmas also along with the chadhu. A row of white plastic chairs stood quietly against the wall. There is no ticket machine, you order from the menu at the seat and pay when you leave. If you are into nori then you can get the special nori mashi, with 15 sheets of nori in the soup, the guy next to me got it but I didn't take a picture of it. The shop appears to have had different names at different time, at one time it was called "Chuuka Soba Tsubomi" (中華蕎麦 蕾), or alternatively "Tonkotsu Shoyu Tsubomi" (豚骨醤油 蕾). Open all day but closed on Sundays.
Amasan Blog
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In Gotanda, down the street next to the Mitsubishi MUFJ bank across from the west exit (the one with the Seijo Ishii) of Gotanda station, is Toshoumen Seian Hanso. I will submit that this is the best toshoumen place on the lower left side of the loop. This place filled up quickly on a Saturday night, we were waiting at door for the opening at 5:30, and there were 2-3 tables reserved by the time we got in. They have various toshoumens, including the quite spicy red one, regular dan-dan toshoumen, yasai toshoumen, chashu toshoumen, etc. Also they have a special spicy red sauce sliced-chicken dish (垂涎鶏) and many other things on an interesting Szechuan-style menu, many dishes claim to be from Xi'an. The proprietor is very friendly and he and the staff will speak Japanese very slowly and understandably to you if you ask them - they long cylindrical tetsu nabe gyozas (ジュージュー鉄鍋ギョーザ) are very good and have a taste not always found in other gyozas. The toshomen can be shared by two people. It had very fresh chewy noodles and the broth is quite rich, it doesn't taste like some powdered togarashis were tossed into a pot of chicken broth. Also included are ground pork and string beans. Right next door is a regular Chinese place, I don't know if they are related or not - but this place seems good enough - many interesting things on the menu, including some crab soups, chinese hot pot, etc. Prices were pretty cheap - a side, the gyozas, shorompo, the soup and the chicken, plus two asahi chu bins for 4500 yen. Not too shabby.
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The October 2008 Ramen-Lovers club meeting convened after work in the first floor of our building. The first item on the menu of fun tonight was Hirataishu, a place in Gotanda about 10 mins walk from the station going south torwards Oosaki. This place is almost right under the tracks of the first stop on the Tokyu Ikegami-sen going south. There was a line outside, both when we arrived and when we left. The shop has a pretty sparse and dark interior. It has a fairly good rating on Supleks - 56. They also have both miso and tonkotsu ramen, plus a special baku-mori-abura-abura men 爆盛油脂麺, which I got. Baku = burst of laughter. The dish is quite good, but very filling, even for its small size. The pork on the abura men was diced and crumbled up, much smaller and granular compared to the pork slices on the regular dishes. The store has 12-13 seats at a long counter that goes around the store. The noodles were delivered in a very messy bowl. They are different from most other abura soba noodles in that they are thick noodles that internally (internally to the noodle) tasted like they had flavor inside of them, like a shoyu flavor had been mixed in at noodle-making time. It was a very "dry" dish, you won't have a bunch of oil and sauce at the bottom with this dish when you are done like Miharu or Ikaruga or other mazesoba places. Very generous portion of onions included too. I guess you would call this an abura soba or shiru nashi dish. My coworkers got miso ramen, generally. All will come with an egg by default and 400g of noodles, and lots of fat sprinked on top. For a drink you can have beer or apple juice. The noodles might be too firm for some people.
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Takano Ramen has a very long line out front, about 30-40 minutes. This is because it appears to be one of the top 10 famous ramen shops in Tokyo according to various sites and books. There were people waiting inside the shop too, it's an L-shaped interior with one table in the back and a long counter that snakes around to the left in the back. It's down the street from a cute flower shop and is next to the Mizuho bank right across from the exit of Ebaranakanobu Station on the Tokyu Ikegami line. A small shrine inside is pictured above. I had the shio tsukemen with the extra menma and chashu dish, which contained three slices of lightly grilled pork and some good spicy menma. The noodles were a bit on the thin side and it took the noodle-cooking-person like two minutes to get every last noodle out of the pot. The broth was a very rich chicken broth, very salty with a heavy dose of onions. Was it quite good? Of course. Was it worth the train trip and the wait? It might not be for some.
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I had some personal business to conduct down the street from Ranmaru, on a weekday at lunch time, so I stopped in - I had passed many times before but never went in until today. There was a fairly long line of 10-15 people, extending out to the sidewalk, including a couple of other westerners. They have a narrow hallway in the front with room for about 5-6 people at a long counter, and then after that they have a bunch of tables in the back. The special tsukemen has onions and large chicken chunks in the broth, chicken is rare for tsukemen or even ramen in Tokyo. It's a somewhat rich and salty shoyu broth but nothing really special, and I got the extra chashu ticket (4 slices) to test that out in addition to the chicken. I must say that the quality of the chashu, which was fairly well done and grilled on the outside, was high. The noodles were the thin nondescript linguine type and not such a big portion. There were tissues available. However the AC was a little low and should have been turned up higher for a humid and busy day like this, especially at lunch time with so many people in the place.
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This Gotanda branch of Santouka (remember very occasionally you will see the characters written right to left instead of left to right) has the toroniku - 8 or 9 very thin slices of pig cheek meat - very fatty and expensive at about 750 yen but worth it if you are a pork fan. Santouka didn't always have tsukemen, this is a new dish that they have. There also used to be a Santouka in Ebisu but that branch has closed. These noodles were good and chewy - the tsukemen comes with different noodles than those that come with the regular shio ramen. They are actually somewhat al dente to begin with. There was a line of 5-10 people and a long counter, very friendly staff. Some of the people were waiting inside. Unfortunately unlike the Japanese customers before and after me I didn't receive one of the discount tickets when I paid my bill (waribiki kens).
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Ryumon just opened in Kami Osaki, across from the West exit of JR Meguro Station. (The ads say it's the Meguro branch but the address is still Shinagawa-ku). It's located in the basement under a natural foods store (green sign). It's a bit cramped, don’t sit right near the door if you can as the automatic door keeps smacking into the table. There was a 30 minute wait for my wife and me on a Thursday night. The original hon ten of Ryumon is in Gotanda, a little bit northeast away from the station. Ryumon is supposed to specialize in hot Szechuan-style cuisine. We had several dishes, including stewed cabbage in crab sauce, shrimp in chili sauce (very good, way above average), a julienned/shaved potatoes dish, and a spicy beef ramen. While everything was very good, the portions were just too small for the price. We spent 7300 yen and we were still a bit hungry afterwards. Above is a picture of the spicy beef soup – this was really spicy and had a lot of spicy ra-yu oil on the top, the noodles were sort of plain though - but the bowl in the above picture was only 6-7 inches across at the top. I think a better bet for high-end Chinese in that area, 3 minutes walk away from Ryumon and JR Meguro station, would be Hong Kong En, near Tonki.
Tabelog page (more pictures)
Bento.com page about Gotanda branch (more pictures)
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Rokugo is inside the Thinkpark office/shopping complex just west of JR Osaki station, on the opposite side as Osaki New Gate City. Thinkpark is another one of these large shopping complexes that never seems to have anyone in it. However it does have two British pubs and a artificial soccer turf outside in front that some teams were playing on today. Rokugo is nestled in the back on the first floor near the escalators. They have some interesting and different dishes that caught my eye. First of all, their main line of hot ramen dishes is actually "beef bone based", also known as gyu-kotsu (as opposed to ton-kotsu, pork-bone-based). This is a rarity in Tokyo. The ramen had Hakata-style thin whitish noodles in it just like Hakata tonkotsu, and it also have roast-beef-like slices of beef, which were pretty good. Portion was a bit small so I recommend you get the chashu topping (they call it chashu but it is actually beef) and the omori size for the noodles for a total of 1200 yen. It had a lot of chopped negis and menmas in it. The broth had a good beef and shoyu flavor (you can also get it in miso and shio). This would be a good place to bring someone who wants to try ramen in Tokyo but does not eat pork (but can eat beef). Also, they have a lot of other types of things including shabu shabu, yakitori, etc. Seems to be a general restaurant that also happens to have some good ramen. They also have as a limited time special, a "ratatouille" tsukemen with chopped tomatoes, onions and eggplant in the dipping sauce. That's certainly different - very creative.
Ikemen Blog (more pictures)
Supleks Page
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Shinki Restaurant in Nakanobu is an interesting little Chinese restaurant that has some slightly different dishes on the menu. The shop is near Nakanobu Station on the Toei Asakusa line. Shinki is actually a small chain of three places in Setagaya-ku, Minato-ku, and this one in Shinagawa-ku. I tried something that I haven't seen anywhere else (yet) in Tokyo, the tsuyu nashi (no soup, つゆなし麺), very thin Hong Kong-style egg noodles. Sometimes this is called "dry noodle" style in Chinese restaurants. The noodles were served with a very salty shoyu-based sauce drizzled over them, not regular soup style. You can get either thicker Japanese noodles or these thinner (angel hair or thinner) Hong Kong-style noodles. There were also a lot of different small dim-sum type dishes on the menu, such as spare rib meshis and various sauteed vegetables, and the actual in-store menu is bigger than what's on the site. The shop was not crowded at 3 PM on a Saturday. I think the food here is good but for the price (1050 yen) I would want a somewhat bigger portion, or at least the option for an omori size.
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