Ah, you were expecting…something other than noodles? Well, I expected not to eat ‘year end soba’, so I made up for it by eating ramen all 5 days leading up to the new year. Here’s #3.
It’s a tsukemen place that I jog by a lot. Even early in the morning, it smells good out on the street. This is how a lot of these newish tsukemen specialists look – clean, a bit stylish, like an easily-replicated concept. That reminds me, one time in a country izakaya I saw some restaurant design magazines. It’s one of those things – as soon as you realize there are magazines showing you how to decorate your new ramen, or soba, or whatever, shop, and that there are almost certainly services to do it for you, the decor is a lot less mysterious. For tsukemen, it’s almost like you have to decorate this way. It’s weird because it gives every place the look of a chain, whereas this place is just two shops, Ryogoku and Suidobashi. I always wonder how people pick their locations like that. Maybe just because they’re connected by train line in this case.
Perhaps due to magazine influence, or maybe just the shared DNA of tsukemen-boilers, the plywood counters are reminiscent of other places I’ve been to, and I haven’t even been to that many – because I don’t like tsukemen. But somehow I keep getting sucked into trying it again.
As they go, this was a decent one. Little pork bone in the soup, just heavy, heavy pork flavor and maybe some fishes. As always, it got cold long before the noodles were gone. I don’t get it. Good egg, but the pork was very nice and would be the way to go here.
Also, they have a ‘soup’ system here. Some places will have a thermos of hot water / thin soup on the counter so you can re-heat and dillute your dip for drinking after the noodles are gone. Here you say “Soup!” and they give you a cup to pour in.
Might as well.
03-3846-4311
Gokurosama!