We’d run out of rice at home, so I headed out to grab something to eat. Wandering around the neighborhood, I spotted a place with a line outside, and even though I’d never seen the name before, curiosity got the better of me and I went in.
The building
It’s pretty neat and tidy for a neighborhood ramen shop. The owner makes the ramen all by himself, and he looked quite young. I got the feeling he’d worked part-time at some ramen shop for a while and then opened his own place with family money.
Water is self-service!
After all, the owner runs the place alone with no staff…
The ticket machine
It’s pretty serious stuff for what’s supposedly just a neighborhood ramen shop.
Rich tonkotsu gyokai (pork-bone and seafood) ramen
This is the standard style of Tokyo new-wave ramen. The seafood cuts through the heaviness of the tonkotsu and gives an otherwise flat flavor some punch. But this shop hasn’t quite pulled the soup off to that level. The balance is a little off, and it lacks that accent. The chashu and toppings taste good, but they seem to go their own way a bit, apart from the soup. It’s not a famous shop worth traveling a long way and standing in line for. Still, I never imagined I’d get serious new-wave ramen of this level at a mere neighborhood ramen shop, not even in Ikebukuro.
Thick noodles
Hmm… they seem to have been boiled about 10 seconds too long. The noodles are on the weak side. I think I’d need to order the shio ramen or the tsukemen, which use different noodles, to judge them properly.
Bowl licked clean
That was good. I’ll drop by now and then. An ordinary neighborhood ramen shop like this, the kind you’d find in any part of town, never shows up in ramen guidebooks. There’s not much reason for it to, either. Word of mouth and the local regulars are enough to keep it going. Of course, if it gets tastier than it is now and develops a ramen with real character, it could become nationally famous, but that doesn’t happen often. Anyway, it’s a real pleasure having a good place to eat near home. I just need to think a bit harder about how to burn off the calories from eating ramen at night.