Futaba/Kamiogi二葉/上荻

 

Futaba (two leaves) had a wait outside on a cold day of about 20 minutes. It was very hold, humid and cramped inside though. Both the shop and the bowl were jam packed, one with closely-seated customers that took up the 9 seats shoulder-to-shoulder, another with soup components that included cabbage and onions, and a well blended but clearerand still fatty broth. Be sure to read the various notes on the sign, or have someone read them for you. I had the Ramen Jiro look-alike dish and it was fairly good. There are two shops in this chain, less than a quarter-mile straight line distance from each other, and both within close walking distance of JR Ogikubo Station.

Google Maps
Shop Home Page
Kigeki Ramen Page

Shimento/Ogikubo四面燈/荻窪

    

This is a Jiro clone in Ogikubo, the best one in a long time. Well-blended between shoyu and tonkotsu, very salty broth, one of the best broths out of all the the Jiro clones that I have had. Well-cut pork pieces, good balance of dark meat and lighter meat and fat as you can see from the pictures. Nice really thick squiggly chigire hand-made noodles, like super-thick linguine. You want the second button from the left on the machine, on the top row, 850 yen. No wait on a Saturday immediately after open. Regulars coming in immediately, good sign. Check the opening times, and days before you go. Interesting comic at each seat that explains some of the menu items and provides some light comedy. Watch for bicycles up and down the street when you exit. At the ticket hand-over time that's when you tell them what toppings you want. The sign outside says "doka-mori". The best translation I can find for doka is heavy, earthen, bulky, noisy. This is a bulky hearty bowl that will certainly satisfy.

Google Maps
Good Pictures

AburaTei/Sakurajosuiあぶらー亭/桜上水

  

Stopped here on the way back from HAGGY. Tolerable take-out items including a decent chahan and a make-at-home aburamen (noodles need to be cooked, the rest mixed in yourself). The ingredients are pictured above along with the final product. Eat-out is better than eat-in at this place.

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Shop Home Page

Ramen Yokocho/Koenjiらーめん横丁/高円寺

    

Koenji Ramen Yokocho is another group of ramen shops located sort of inside/next to JR Koenji Station. It opened in Dec of 2009. There are branches of 4 stores here, three of which are famous already: TETSU, Moukou Tanmen, Kunigami-ya, and one that is less well known, the local Daikian, an offshoot of Daiki in Yushima. Did not eat at any of these places, since have been to all of them already at other location. I will say that the basement location felt very cramped though.

Other Blog Page
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Koukaiya/Asagaya航海屋/阿佐ヶ谷

 

Koukaiya is an "old-style" ramen shop, with an old look, old walls, old fixtures and old customers, spanning several branches in Tokyo, including branches in Asagaya, Shinjuku and Ikebukero. The large pieces of pork in the chashumen picture (チャーシューメン) on the menu web page at the link below are what attracted me to this place. If you go to this branch you will be asked what broth you want to choose from when you order, there are two types - one that is fish-based (gyoukai) and one that is chicken-based (tori-bara). I had the gyoukai one. The broth was moderately watery, a bit more watery than it should have been for the texture of the noodles, which were fairly plain. The pork slices were from a giant piece of kakuni buta but once they got to me they were only about 1/2 the size of the ones in the picture - I have been in Japan for a while now and really should have known better than to trust an ad picture. Very cramped store and it seemed like all of the customers and employees knew each other. You can see pictures of the different dishes also on the menu right outside the door, but you will still buy a ticket at the machine directly inside the door when you go it. Interestingly, they sell blocks of the kakuni buta right outside the shop for 500 yen each, you will need to tell them that you want one as there is no one manning the stall outside, I bought one and it was decent.

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Google Maps

RyotanTei/Honanchoりょうたん亭/方南町

 

RyotanTei in Honancho is just a couple minutes west from Honancho station, the last stop going west on the Marunouchi subway line from Shinjuku. It's an interesting little shop that unfortunately had no aircon going, just open windows and electric fans, on a not-so-cool mid-September Saturday. The very nice woman behind the counter spoke decent English even though it wasn't necessary. Many of the customers who came in after me ordered the wonton men, a hot soup dish, which was interesting since it was a hot day. There must be something special about that dish, I will have to try that next time. The tsukesoba with a chashu plate combination was good - very thin but tasty noodles, the portion was a bit small though. They also put a lot of nori and a slice of lemon on them. The chashu slices were sliced against the grain, giving them a rough texture, and the pork had the reddish outside color as though it had been seasoned or marinated or whatever, and then cooked Chinese-style. It was delivered with a tasty brown sauce and freshly chopped onions on top. Not bad overall.

Jiro Tan page (more pictures)
Diddlefinger Map (English labels)
Google Map

Rinki/Eifuku臨機/永福

 

Vacation day continues. My next stop on the Keio Inokashira line (京王井の頭線) today was another tsukemen place in Eifuku that has just recently opened. Rinki (りんき, 臨機) is literally right across the street from the only (south side) exit of NishiEifuku (西永福) station. It has a counter that seats 5 or 6 and also it has 3 tables for four. They looked like they were just getting over the usual "new store" problems as the temperature at the counter next to the kitchen was quite hot, the manager apologized to me profusely about it, and they had some sort of temporary machine that looked like a giant vacuum cleaner rigged up to suck the heat away. I usually don't mind sitting at the counter as it affords you a better view of the kitchen and the cook. There was plenty of attentive and enthusiastic staff dressed in colorful knit rasta caps who all pretty much looked like this was their first day on the job.

The pork here was excellent, that's the main story, an aburi chashu similar to Yotekko-ya's. It was available in both small pieces to be mixed into the soup, as came with the default tsukemen, and also as a topping in slices, which were also grilled on a real grill prior to serving. The noodles were the regular flatter thin-linguine egg type and the only (small) complaint on that is that they use those fancier disposable chopsticks with the pointy ends that make thin noodles harder to pick up, instead of the normal square-ended ones. The broth was a strong flavor, pork with fish overtones like I had earlier in the day at Kai. A richer taste here. The menma was good and crunchy too, the bigger thicker slices that go well with a strong broth. Definitely recommended, especially if the quality of the pork stays this good or improves.

saito1972329 Ramen Diary (more pictures + menu)
Diddlefinger Map (English labels)
Google Map

Kai/Kugayama甲斐/久我山

 

Vacation day. Today I decided to take the Keio Inokashira line (京王井の頭線) west a bit from the center of Tokyo and check out two tsukemen places along that line between Meidaimae and Kichijoji. The first one was in Kugayama, less than 50 meters from the station right near the railroad crossing. The name of the shop is Kai (fruitful, effective) and it specializes in chukka soba/tsukemen as you can see from the pictures of the outside of the store.

This store is a very small place situated on one of those sharp-angled corner plots of land that the Japanese hate to waste. It has no tables, only 8 small stools at a counter (of course me the big gaijin always gets wedged in a corner somehow) and one person behind a small counter who was working extremely hard and was covered in sweat. The broth was good, shoyu with fish overtones - and it didn't have that slight hint of sweetness that you get with the Taishoken-type tsukemen shops. Not to say that is good or bad, just different. Generous portion of onions in there. No tissues or spoons. The noodles were quite close to the Taishoken tsukemen type, spaghetti-thickness. These were a shade darker in color and had some firmness to them. The "regular" pork chashu was grilled on the outside then sliced thinly, this is one of the layered cuts similar to Bannai's pork. Definitely good overall.

Ramen.LiveDoor.Biz review (more pictures)
Diddlefinger Map (English labels)
Google Map

Ramen Dai/Nishi-Ogikuboラーメン大/西荻

Ramen Dai falls into the Jiro-like category. It's is one of a chain of (currently three) ramen shops, all a bit outside the loop, one in Suginami-ku, two in Ota-ku. The distinguishing feature between this chain and Jiro, broth-wise, is that there's a lot more onions and garlic (both are very finely chopped) in the broth by default, and somewhat less fat. This gives it a really strong flavor, that I like, but not everyone may. As usual I went with the tsukemen o-mori with extra chashu. Broth was salty, but not as salty as some. Noodles were correctly katame and curly, thickness of thick spaghetti. The chashu was a bit on the dry side but still good. Best feature: no line, although the shop was still busy. Another good feature: open all day Saturday and Sunday. Worth a short detour if you are in the area.

Pictures+Address
Google Map