I heard there was a ramen shop with a fun concept in a place called Oimachi, so I went to check it out. Apparently the soup is tomato-based. I was so curious what it would taste like that I just had to go.
The place is called ajito.
It’s such a tiny shop that I wandered around for ages even with a map in hand. The tables are small too, and you have to wonder who would ever find this place… But since it’s featured in almost every ramen guidebook, it seems to get a fair number of visitors, mostly ramen maniacs. The owner doesn’t seem to be a ramen specialist at heart; it looks more like he runs it as a side business while doing some other job. Otherwise this kind of operation just wouldn’t be possible.
The menu
I ordered the Rosso.
The soup looks like this,
and the noodles look like this.
Oh… it tastes like spaghetti. Ramen noodles in ramen soup, and yet it tastes like spaghetti – what a surprise… The noodles are thick, but maybe because they’re cooked just right, they have a nice springy bite. But after eating it, I started to wonder why I was eating this ramen at all. If you want spaghetti, you can just eat spaghetti; is there any point in going out of your way to eat ramen that tastes like spaghetti…? From now on I think I’ll focus on the orthodox shops rather than the quirky ones.