Machidaya, Shin Yurigaoka

So I broke my glasses. Not completely, but enough to make you think they could break any time, and I’ve got stuff coming up where I really need to be wearing glasses. Like my life. So I walked up to the station and ordered some new ones, walked around and did some errands, and then it came upon me that it was time for lunch.

I kid. I was just killing time until I could go back to the ramen place I passed on the way to the station. You wouldn’t see it if you stayed on the street, but if you cut through the movie college, you can’t help but pass it.

This kinda threw me since they have a funny system. After you buy your plastic ordering tags (and as an aside, I respect these guys for being able to tell right away what your order is. Every item has a different color, and I don’t know how they tell, for example, the pale lavender boiled egg tag from the lavender aji-tsuki egg tag.) (Cynics will say “one is paler than the other”, but they can suck it.) they’ll ask you how you want your ramen. You can see the options on the yellow sign behind this fellow, but I was all confused by the way they were written – looks vertical, but is horizontal. So you can choose your noodle firmness, level of soy sauce, and level of chicken fat. Chicken fat? What kinda ramen is this?

From the name, maybe it’s Machida ramen. I’ve only been to Machida once – coincidentally I went to have ramen, but it was nothing like this. If I had to describe, and I do in order to amuse you, I’d say this is Yokohama ramen with a twist, but I don’t know what the twist is.

I ordered the noodles firm, and they were, but you don’t usually get an option with this type of noodle. Likewise the condiments in the back – are they normal? Actually I think they are, and I just forgot – here’s the other verifiable Yokohama place I know I’ve been to, and they had condiments too. Today, I was afraid to offend with garlic, so I stuck with some hot sauce halfway through, and that livened it up. The pork had that ‘canned ham’ taste, the egg was overdone (although they might not have had any intention to keep the yolk jellied), and the soup was tolerable.

Or was it? By the time I got down to this point and was reminded that the noodles are made from the bones of ultra pigs, I was enjoying it. I had a few spoons of soup after the noodles were gone, then managed to stop. It’s strangely thin for an ultra pig soup; maybe you need more fat from actual meat to make it as thick and lip-smacky like a really awesome place.

Or maybe they’re making the soup from something else…
+81 44-952-3303

Ehhh, I was supposed to finish with that, but I’m all amused that TripAdvisor has a page for this ramen shop, but the main picture it shows is of the standout liquor store Machidaya, which is half a world away.