A new ramen shop called Okurindo has opened in Hamamatsucho.

The entrance

It turned up in a spot where I never would have guessed there was a restaurant.

The menu

The menu here is fun: the base chuka soba is an ago-dashi niboshi broth, and they float what amounts to an essence of grilled fish on top to finish the flavour. You could say it’s the classic Japanese breakfast — rice, fish and miso soup — rebuilt as a bowl of noodles. Right now you can pick mackerel, squid, saury, sardine, salmon or horse mackerel, and instead of fish you can also go with a paste like mushroom or chestnut. They all have such strong personalities that I was really curious how it would taste.

The set meal

With the nori and the chashu on the side, it really does look like a Japanese breakfast.

The noodles up close

There’s not a lot of broth, and it reminded me a little of Chuka Soba Ito. The noodles are good quality, and I went with mackerel for the soup — the mackerel comes through properly. Well, the nutritional balance is carbs and nothing but carbs, but it tastes like a proper breakfast.

The side menu explained

You can add a truffle nitamago, switch to the spicy soba, order a side of aemen, and so on.

I set mine up like this.

The taste is very satisfying. The grilled mackerel comes surging up, familiar and fresh at the same time. Niboshi had started to feel a bit played out, and adding all these variations to it makes it interesting again. I love seeing places try things like this.

Truffle nitamago

Hmm, this one was just so-so.

Sansho

The sansho here is such good quality that a couple of grinds change the flavour completely — a variation on top of a variation. Japanese ramen has climbed another rung.

한국어로 읽기日本語で読む