Search for ramen shops in Hamamatsu and the one that comes up top is Ramen Oekaki. It sits way out of the way, though, so I never made it there until this time.

Riding the train..

It’s a long ride.

The station

The weather was lovely.

An abacus school

Huh, so places like this still exist.. I do wonder whether the business holds up..

A spot like this

Over hill and dale, I finally arrived. Most people would drive to a place like this, but it was the weekend, so I walked it for the exercise.

Tamago kake gohan

They must have some technique for cutting an egg open this neatly. It caught me off guard.

Poured over the rice

They use eggs from kochin chickens raised in Hamakita, here in Hamamatsu, and the flavour was seriously rich. This is worth a special trip.

Fuwacha

This is the shop’s signature dish, and they’ve made a whole flower out of the chashu.

The noodles

Fashionable wholewheat noodles with a nice springy bite.

The ramen here is a double soup of pork bone and seafood. There was a time when this was the height of new-wave ramen fashion. Eating it now, it feels almost nostalgic. Like putting on Nirvana again and realising this has become a classic – it’s genuinely moving. That said, I do think there’s too much chashu. It photographs beautifully, but balance-wise all that pork flattens the flavour. Nothing to be done this time, but if I come back I’d go for the regular ramen.

Inside

Plenty of celebrities seem to have dropped by.

The entrance

This is the vibe. The queue isn’t long, but customers kept trickling in steadily. With a better location they’d surely pull in more people – it’s a mystery to me why anyone would put a ramen shop out in a corner like this.

The kitchen

Great atmosphere. I’d like to come back.

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