One of my favourite ramen blogs that I read occasionally is the well written and highly respected Ramen Adventures written by an American guy called Brian. In fact his opinion is so respected that he has been on television in Japan on numerous occasions as a ramen expert. Anyway, it was through his blog that I found another ramen street in Tachikawa, on the west side of Tokyo. It is called New York Ramen Square (their website is in Japanese but you can get a rough translation if you use Google Chrome). One Monday recently I decided to head out west to Tachikawa to check it out.
It is pretty easy to find. Leave Tachikawa station through the south exit and head across the walkway.
You want to go to the Arearea 2 building,
so walk past the Softbank shop and keep going for a little until you see the sign that says "Ramen Square" in both Japanese and English.
Go inside
and up the escalators and you have arrived.
Basically NY Ramen Square is home to 7 different ramen shops. A lot of the information is only in Japanese, but there are plenty of pictures if you can't read Japanese.
This one has a chicken, beef and seafood base soup.
The soup of this one is a combination of soy sauce, fish and chicken going by what I can see on the Ramen Square's website (haven't got a photo of the shop as it came out very blurry).
Menshiro has a pork and chicken base.
Gokujoe has ramen that has a tonkotsu (or pork soup) base and that char shu (or braised pork) on top looks amazing!
This next one, called Kizuna has a seafood base.
A nice Sapporo style Miso ramen
And finally Mantougyo which has a tonkotsu base.
After walking around for about 15 minutes not knowing which one to choose, I finally decided to go with Mantougyo, however I chose a miso ramen that they did using the tonkotsu base.
I went inside, handed over my tickets and waited for my deliciousness to arrive.
Before too long and with a cheerful "omatase shimashita" ("sorry to have kept you waiting") it had arrived!
The ramen soup was so thick it wasn't really a soup, it was more like a gravy sauce!
And it was good!!
So, if you live or work on the west side of Tokyo near Tachikawa, or even if you just love ramen and live or are staying anywhere in Tokyo, I highly recommend a visit to New York Ramen Square in Tachikawa!
Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it. As always. feel free to leave a comment or share the blog if you know someone who might like it!
See you next time.
Konnichiwa Jason,I don't recall hearing that phrase "omatese shimashita'',but do recall the phrase"chotto matte kudasi".Another phrase I remember whilst in Tokyo was "man seki"....possibly you know and have heard both of these as well.It seems that Ramen is predominately male food going by the adverts....as you may recall,I prefer the varieties of Udon.It seems Ramen has basically meat of some kind and egg.I eat little meat these days and egg and would never have egg with noodles..although I would eat noodles made with egg.Pho shops are opening up everywhere in Adelaide these days and they have become one of my favourite lunch time meals.A small bowl(although large for me) is about $11.I imagine that although Tokyo is considered an expensive place to live,Ramen shops,due the immense competition, would price their Ramen bowls cheaper than this;especially if they were only vegetarian.I can imagine that perhaps one day you will have your own Aussie Ramen shop...Ramen Pie Floater! Cheers , Noel.ps. the European Wasps are driving us indoors this year...fortunately,where we live,they are not in plague proportions...they seem like BBQ's and outdoor eating sites.
ReplyDeleteHi Noel,
ReplyDeleteI have heard man seki a few times and chotto matte kudasai and in fact I have used the latter myself a few times! You are right about ramen, it is predominantly men who go to ramen shops, but I do know many women who love their ramen!
There are different varieties of ramen, I just prefer the meat and egg ones!
It is interesting Noel, but I now feel that Australia is a more expensive place to live. I feel that the cost of living has gone above Japan (except for rent) and I recently read that both Sydney and Melbourne are now more expensive places to live than Tokyo! You are right, however, with about 4,000 ramen restaurants in Tokyo, the price remains pretty good. People have told me that in Fukuoka, the price for a bowl of ramen is about half the price of Tokyo. It seems like I need to pay Fukuoka a visit!
Take care,
Jason.