It was a short weekend trip so things were pretty hectic, and I had drinks with friends lined up for the evening, so I decided to keep dinner simple with a bowl of ramen. There are two ramen shops that have been getting famous in Shinjuku lately: one is Fuunji, where I went this time, and the other is a place called Nagi. I’d actually meant to go to Nagi, but it turns out they only open for dinner from 7 p.m. Given the neighborhood it’s in (Shinjuku Golden Gai), that’s fair enough, I suppose, but my plans started at 7 on the dot, so I gave it a miss this time.
Fuunji’s entrance
It’s in a half-basement. You come out of Shinjuku Station’s South Exit and have to walk a bit further in. There isn’t much around it, so it’s not that easy to find (there is a police box nearby), but distance-wise it’s not far at all. The thing that makes this place stand out is that the owner used to be an idol. Hmm… seeing him in person, I bet he was quite the hit back in the ’80s. (He could probably make good money as a host, and yet he threw himself into the brutal ramen business…) He’s fairly well known, yet he was right there in the kitchen serving the bowls himself. When the owner is actually in the shop, the service and the flavor stay consistent. So my opinion of the place went up before I’d even eaten.
Ramen, 700 yen, large portion
My friend ordered the ramen and I got the tsukemen. The ramen is the tonkotsu-seafood style that’s all the rage these days, and in a way a very ordinary one; some people even say it’s barely different from a certain famous ramen shop. I had a bite myself and thought, yep, zero originality. But given how well the noodles were cooked and the quality of the thick broth, rich with dried fish, being able to eat ramen this good for a cheap 700 yen in the middle of Shinjuku is well worth queuing for. Anywhere else it would probably cost around 900 yen, or they’d charge extra for a large portion, I reckon.
Tsukemen noodles, 750 yen
Classic tsukemen noodles, and again nothing unusual about them. They were drained nicely, too. But they weren’t especially memorable and were a bit lacking in springiness, so it struck me as a great-value shop rather than a legendary one.
The tsukemen dipping broth
This broth was really good. It has a slightly sour aftertaste that cuts the richness in your mouth and brings out the umami. Yasubee and Daijin go for a similar concept, but they’re shoyu-based, and this is the first time I’ve seen this style in the tonkotsu-seafood category. The tsukemen alone is worth coming a long way for; you won’t regret it.
The ramen shops I write about are usually ones that are easy to get to. This one satisfies on all three counts (access, taste and price), so it’s going on my highly recommended list. Ramen is really fast food, after all, so if it’s cheap, tasty and quick, what more could you want? (Add some gyoza and a beer and there’s nothing left to wish for.) Japan also has legendary ramen shops that are hard to get to, with poor service, where you still have to queue for an hour. The food at those places really is delicious. But I’m so busy with work, and there’s plenty of other good food out there, that I rarely find the time to go hunting for places like that. (I suspect Taishoken was about as far as those adventures went for me. As for Rokurinsha… ahem…)