Nasusoba Murata is a place that serves nasusoba, the local ramen of Shimizu. It is a ramen with eggplant piled on top. It is so famous that there was no way I could skip it.

A place like this

The queue was pretty long. More precisely, the turnover was slow. So I waited a good while before getting in. It did make me wonder whether a shop can actually stay in business this way.

The menu

Nice and simple. Apparently you can have it as a rice bowl rather than as ramen too.

Water

There are not that many seats. They start cooking once you order, and maybe because it is proper Chinese cooking, it took quite a while.

Nasu soba

I had assumed it would just be ramen with some eggplant on top, but it was packed with fried eggplant so hot it nearly burned the roof of my mouth.

The noodles

The sweet, thick sauce is loaded with Chinese-style ingredients like shiitake, bamboo shoots and pork, so it is full of savory depth, and it tasted rather like shark fin soup or Buddha Jumps Over the Wall. The thin noodles are only there to back it up; the eggplant itself was a complete Chinese dish in its own right. Can you really eat a dish like this at this price? No wonder people line up the way they do.

I decided I absolutely have to come back to this place. It is quite far away, though, so it will probably be a while before I make it back.

한국어로 읽기日本語で読む