Tamayakata/Tachikawaたま館/立川

   

Tamayakata is a ramen theme park (more like just 4 shops crammed into a big garage) in Tachikawa, about 5-10 mins walk east from the station, out the south exit. They threw a bunch of fake bamboo into the place too, not sure what they were trying to make it look like (another definition for "yakata" or "kan" is palace). The interior is nothing to scream about, not like the Ramen Square much nearer the station. The shop I picked today was Inosho, a place that usually specializes in tonkotsu gyoukai. The reason I went to this shop today was their special limited time gentei menu item called tsuke-inoji (つけイノジ) was out of the ordinary. This is a clever combination of hiyashi-chuuka (cold noodles with vegetables), cold grilled pork cuts, and Ramen Jiro-style tonkotsu shoyu broth with a lot of moyashi in it. This combination works suprisingly well. The broth is extremely fatty, a slight amount of togarashi, with the pure Jiro taste (even though this place is not a Ramen Jiro). The noodles are fairly thick and home made. The only problem with the fat that was ladled on top of the broth, it had some of those stringy sinewy bits in it that I could have done without. Once I got those out of the way, dipping the pork (there are 3 different cuts) into the broth along with the noodles was quite excellent. Sort of like a Jiro tsukemen thing.

Tamayakata Home Page
Inosho Home Page
Google Maps

Ramen Jiro/Tachikawaラーメン 二郎/立川

 

Well still three more Ramen Jiros to go, since now there's a new one on the boards in Omiya, right near the Saitama Railway Museum. It was a hot day in Tachikawa but it was decently air conditioned inside. There are 11-12 seats at the counter, with two waiting seats and 5 or so standing spots. They only have the sho (小), in both single buta and double sizes. The line outside and inside was about 20-25 mins long and if you get there after about 12-12:30 you can stand in the shade of the building. It's a very busy bicycle street so be sure not to get in the way or the obasans will run you over. It's a standard-size bowl of regular Jiro taste. You get a generous 8 slices of pork in the double buta 850 yen size, the cleanly-cut type with very little fat on it. The noodles are like round linguine and include a generous portion of moyashis too. Very efficient but tentative service, like they were still working things out. The two guys behind the counter were quite intense. There's a yellow ceramic pig in the corner next to the Jiro creed on the wall. One of they guys was wearing a t-shirt with a picture of a pig in soccer attire kicking a clove of garlic soccer style. A very new store, with that white wallpaper that is usually in gaijin apartments that scratches if you so much as look at it the wrong way. The single rest room is in the back - no tissues or spoons.

OTaqe's Blog page
Tabelog page (more pictures)
Diddlefinger Map (English labels)
Google Map

Ore To Kappa/Tachikawa俺とカッパ/立川

  

Throughout Japan there are a number of what are called "ramen theme parks". These theme parks are not outdoor affairs with clowns, balloons and roller coasters but rather they are inside shopping centers and malls and the theme, surprisingly enough, is ramen. The most famous one is probably the Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum, actually that one is more like a real museum than a theme park, however it's a commercial enterprise like all the rest to be sure. I will cover Ramen Theme Parks more thoroughly in a future post, today I am going to cover only one of the shops, Ore To Kappa, at one of the theme parks in near-central Tokyo. The theme park is called Ramen Square NY, located on the third floor of the AreArea 2 building about two minutes walk south of JR Tachikawa Station.

At about 3 PM on a rainy Saturday I stepped off the escalator into the Ramen Square NY. It was actually quite empty for that time of day on the weekend, which seems odd to me. The Ramen Square has been around for a while but Ore To Kappa (a colloquial '"me" and Kappa') was a relatively recent addition to it (April). They have quite a large selection of items as you can see from the link to their menu below. There were also several other items including side dishes, drinks and desserts on the ticket machine, which do not appear on that printed menu. I had the tsukemen niku mashi (つけ麺肉増し), a generous concoction of three good-sized plates: a quite spicy miso shiru with a few moyashis in it, a generous helping of noodles, and a separate dish for the miso-flavored pork chunks and a raw egg. The miso was very spicy and if you don't like that level of spiciness then you might want to get something else. The men were decent and were a rectangular thick cut like some Ramen Jiro shops. The pork was well-flavored and did not have too much fat but it was also a bit dry, and they put a raw egg on the plate next to it, presumably to dip the meat in (however the meat was just above room temperature when it got to me though). All in all a decent bowl. I hope to post more about the Ramen Square NY in Tachikawa and other ramen theme parks in the future.

Ramen Square Home Page
How to Get There
Pictures of the Menu
Google Map