Monday, November 2, 2009

TOKYO味噌らーめん A.O. (Tokyo Miso Ramen A.O. near Tokyo Station)

TOKYO味噌らーめん A.O.

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It was to be a ramen adventure. Or more like an adventure in finding the ramen shop. Maybe we should have read the small print in the latest ramen magazine that Nate from Waseda-Ramen had, but we didn't. Armed with an address and a general idea, we headed out.

After a couple wrong turns, we ended up here.

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Really? There's a ramen shop here?

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Gourmet! That's gotta mean food.

Just around the corner was a sad little food court area. A dozen shops, appealing to the lunch time business crowd, made their home here. But maybe they get some good business. Even though this was the basement of a building with the most creative name I've come across lately, 日本ビル... Japan Building. But if you've ever been to this part of town, namely Tokyo Station and the surrounding Otemachi and Nihonbashi stations, you know it is a massive underground maze of shops and access to the 40 story business towers above. EVERYTHING is accessible.

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Or maybe business isn't too good. The day after we made it was to be the last. In it's place, the decent tantanmen chain 陳麻家. Oh well, let's see what we have.

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An ok bowl of miso. The soup was bland, which is a big problem when you have miso. To me, miso ramen is all about a huge first taste. Other styles should be good to the last drop, but I think miso needs to kick you in the face, screaming "Uuuuuumai!" the second the spoon gets sipped. Meh is too low a rating, but its close.

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The addition of some grated parmesean cheese helped a bit. But not enough to make the 870 yen worth it.

It should be noted that the noodles were good. The A.O. here refers to an old style of making the noodles. Some enzyme of sorts. Maybe Nate will do the research, but I've got to write up something better.

Shop info here (but don't bother... it's closed now!).

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