Is it Yokohama style, or is it Hakata style?
It's both! Or it's neither! I don't know the classification, but it is definitely good eating on the far east side of Tokyo.
It's best said by the master himself, "Ippongi taste, Hakata style."
Ippongi has received a few awards in the past, and if it wasn't all the way out in Koiwa, I would have gone there sooner. In reality, it is less than 20 minutes from Tokyo station. It just feels far.
Ie-kei - Yokohama style - has a lot of misses in Japan. A standard feature of this style is choice. You can choose the thickness of the soup, how much oil is added, and the firmness of the noodles. I think this is a trick. By offering so much choice, a bad bowl of ramen can be blamed on the customer, not the shop.
Well, Ippongi doesn't offer a choice. It just comes delicious. The pork flavor is strong, with little aftertaste.
I was a little sad that they didn't have any of their custom nori seaweed sheets. Some shops imprint white text onto the dark green sheets. Some shops burn a little symbol on their egg. Others have crazy one-of-a-kind bowls. I dig that sort of thing.
東京都江戸川区西小岩1-29-6-1F
Tokyo, Edogawa-ku, Nishi-Koiwa 1-29-6
Closest station: Koiwa
Open 11:30-23:45
2 comments:
That bowl looks pretty awesome Brian. Curious, is cabbage an ie-kei thing? I've been noticing them in tonkotsu bowls here, usually tonkotsu-shoyu.
Ie-kei is cabbage, spinach, and nori. Tonkotsu-shoyu (heavy Jiro type bowls) are cabbage and moyashi bean sprouts.
Post a Comment