Chiyosaku in Takadanobaba

千代作



Branching off at a funny angle from Takadanobaba station is Sakae dori. You should go there to eat. I did, with fellow ramen blogger Nate during my 2 hour break from teaching High School girls the wonders of my native language.

For the day's lesson, I was teaching them how to sing "We Are the World".



Is this a shop that Michael Jackson and Bruce Springsteen might frequent? A real relaxed shop here, with hundreds of manga comic books and magazines along the wall. We were actually having a random conversation about yakuza when, lo and behold, a pile of yakuza magazines.

On the radio was some good tunes, old school hip hop and modern rock.



Any bit of wall space that isn't covered with books is covered with photogrpahs, mostly of bands eating some late night ramen. It turns out that this shop is near some live houses, and has become a sort of instutution for late night rocker chow. Being Japan, live shows end at 11pm (just in time to catch your last train home). What to do after? Eat ramen seems logical. That's just how we are living the rock star dream.



Seriously, all the walls were covered.



The owner matched the scene. A friendly guy who made sure we were able to manage the ticket machine at the door. After noticing our interest in taking photos, he gave us a couple RC/DC stickers. That's Ramen Chiyosaku TakaDanobaba 3 Chome. Cool.



Do my eyes deceive me?!?



Score. I used to drink Dr. Pepper by the gallon in the States. But I've been on a sort of diet for the last 3 years, and sugar soda is out. Oh, this was nice.



The ramen here is Yokohama style pork soup. You can spot Yokohama style by the 3 sheets of seaweed and the addition of spinach. Last time I had Yokohama style wasn't the best.

This time was prefect. Yokohama style seems to be a bit saltier than others, which goe good with the vegetables and extra oil. I also had a first at this shop, un-deskinned (is that a word?) sesame seeds.



I passed on the garlic and spicy miso toppings, with respect to my student who I would see in an hour. The garlic here was pungent, anytime someone opened the top, it would hit me from across the room. That's some proper hardcore business.

Shop Info Here

Hikarihishio in Shibuya

光醤



2 dilemmas. The first is an easy one. Hunger. Hankering. Feeling peckish. The solution to this is easy. Ramen!



The second dilemma is a torrential downpour. It's to be expected. This is, after all, the rainy season in Japan. As always, it was sunny at some point today, so I went out without an umbrella. This meant that to leave the shelter of the station was highly undesirable. I looked east, I looked west, and I picked the closest ramen shop to the Inokashira line in Shibuya station.

A place called Hikarihishio.



The specialty here is a miso-tonkotsu-shoyu, but I didn't order that. I saw the words ワンタン and didn't bother looking further. Wontons!



A southern style tonkotsu-shoyu soup with a little bit of spicy oil on top. And of course, wontons thrown in. I really wish more shops would make wontons.



One small gripe was that they didn't ask me how I wanted my noodles. I prefer them on the firm side, and these were a bit soft. Not to worry, my kaedama, extra order of noodles, came baribari. Perfect.



This area is always bustling, and there are a good dozen or so ramen shops within a sprint from the station. The clientele is mostly of the drunk salaryman type, but it's good to know. It's only a 5 minute walk to the South side with it's many excellent shops, but sometimes we just can't stand the rain.


Shop Info Here

Inosho in Shakujikoen, #16 in Japan

井の庄



Back to my Top 30 list, and it's a special one. This place is seriously only about 20 minutes by bicycle from me, but I'd been avoiding it. Why? Have a look.



Good lord, it looks like tomato sauce or something. Is this spaghetti ramen?



Nope, it's 辛辛魚らーめん, double spicy fish ramen. The red? That's concentrated fire. In powder form.

But spicy ramen isn't anything new, and certainly just making a comically spicy bowl wouldn't warrant a spot halfway up a Top 30 list, would it? Let's go under the spice and see what we have.

Hella fish, that's what. The soup is made from fish and spice, and the powder on top is ground up fish powder and more spice. It's good, real good... but...

It's thick as all hell. As soon as you mix in the powder, that oily fish kicks up the viscosity to used motor oil status. A few reluctant sips of the left over soup was all that could be done. As I said to Nate, I wanted to take home the extra soup and use it as a base for a curry. It totally would have worked. What's the deal, can I start pouring left over soup into tupperware containers?

Check out a TV spot featuring some spicy ramen in Tokyo. Inosho is the first one.



Shop Info

Hakatatengin in Shinjuku

博多天神


(I forgot how to get here. It's on the main road that parallels the park. It's either in 1-chome or 2-shome)

After my weekly Tuesday evening lesson in Shinjuku, I usually take a stroll through Kabukicho. Kabukicho is, of course, the entertainment center of Tokyo. All forms of fun can be bought here, for a price. Let me rephrase that. All forms of Japanese fun can be bought here. Hostess bars, pachinko parlors, game centers, and, of course, cheap food.



So I found myself wandering aimlessly, and somehow ended up in ni-chome. Sure, we've all heard that story before.

"No really! I ws just looking for some hot, raw men. I mean ramen! Hot ramen!"

"I'm totally a top guy. I mean toppings! I love lots of toppings on my hot, raw men. Dammit!"



Anyways, the fare here is standard Hakata stuff. A bit lacking on the flavor scale. I got a bowl covered in nori seawead and negi, green onions.



Oh, yeah, it's only 500 yen for the basic bowl. That's like 5 bucks.



This shop has 5 or 6 branches in the Shinjuku area alone.

Shop Info Here

Daruma Ramen in Akihabara

だるま


(hard to describe, check the link at the bottom. It's near Akihabara station.

You know you're in Akihabara when you see this in a ramen shop.



Sexy anime girl toys. Speaking of hot, this ramen was hot. Not the sexy kind, but the scalding oil variety of hot.



I've never had a tonkotsu with half an inch of boiling oil on top. The best way to cool it off was to load on the toppings. Standard fare here, but this time you get your own mortar and pestle to crush the sesame seeds and garlic. Fun!



The guys next to me were trading collectible maid cosplay cards.



This shop was right in the middle of the Akihabara madness. I bought some cheap SD cards next door. Just down the street is Super Potato, your retro gaming one-stop superstore. There was a guy dressed as Pikachu handing out cakes on the road. I like it here.

Trouble finding the shop? It's right under a giant adult movie store. Enjoy!



The ramen was standard. I think the hot oil on top takes a lot of the flavor away. Maybe that's because my taste buds were singed off though.

Store Info Link

Yasube in Takadanobaba

やすべえ


(From the Waseda exit, go right, and right again on the large road. It's just past the building covered in crazy chains, which incidentally is a school for the blind)

After a lengthy detour down some back alleys of Takadanobaba, there was Yasube. And there was the line of 18 people. If you are a ramen nut, and have the time, this usually isn't a problem. Someone once calculated that it was 4 or 5 minutes per person in line. But this is a tsukemen shop, and things are different.



As you can see from the sign above, all the sizes are 720 yen. This is one of the selling points of tsukemen. Most shops offer any size you want for the same price. So it's essentially an all-you-can-eat noodle buffet! Just don't order the big one and only eat half. I've never seen someone order a 440 grams of wet noodles and then leave it. I can only imagine the shame.



A line of 18 people, and I sat down after only about 15 minutes. How is that possible? Well, tsukemen arrives cold, and cold goes down much faster than piping hot, oil covered ramen.

Today I ordered the spicy tsukemen.



It wasn't too spicy, but you can feel free to load a pile of diced onions into the soup, like most people were doing.



I'm not down with onions in my ramen.



Yasube was pretty standard. I'm not, nor will I ever be, a tsukemen guy. One reason is that I always tend to get soup splattered on my shirt.

But Yasube actually had bibs. Rock on, you may make a convert out of me yet.



I gotta say, though, if you are hungry, nay famished, these big thick noodles are the way to go.



But, like I said, all these tsukemen shops taste the same to me.

Shop Info Here

Yatai Ramen in Takadanobaba

鷹流


(turn left out of the Waseda Exit at Takadanobaba station. A couple blocks along the main road, hop over to the alley running parallel. It's over there)

Yatai is the... wordiest shop I've seen in a while.



Inside there were instruction manuals about how to eat the different bowls. "Don't add ingredient X and ingredient Y, only 1 is good!" Luckily I was with Nate who possesses the skills to pay the bills.



On one wall is a plethora of ramen related reading. On the other wall...



The owner is into Harley's. The 3rd, un-photographed wall had bottles of スズメ蜂 wine. What's that? It's booze made from killer Japanese wasps, that's what!



And in front of you? A hair band so the ladies (and hippy college students who frequent the area) don't get hair in their ramen. Genius!

What kind of ramen comes from such an eccentric place?



The awesome kind.



Salt from Iwate prefecture melds with piles of chicken for a refreshing bowl of ramen. It was served warm, not blazing hot, and fit perfect with the heat outside. Tomato and lettuce, and what I can only describe as young menma finished the toppings. And hella chicken.



Also olive oil.