[RAMEN] Deluxe Edition (from May 23, 2002)
Ramen This Week: Deluxe Edition
大宝 Taihou (Near Furukawabashi Intersection) [Kekke-san's Review]
This place is more a neighborhood Chinese restaurant than a noodlery. I'd guess it's run more as a hobby by a couple, who are the only people working there. That means they have eratic hours & not enough business scale to ensure smooth operation: they are open only from 12noon for lunch, and only between 8PM-10PM (or earlier, if they run out of Men). But they are pretty pleasant people. I tried a bowl of their Tanmen and gyoza, which were recommended on the internet. Tanmen was essentially a small-sized bowl of shio-flavored noodle, topped with a huge serving of crunchy 'yasai itame.' The noodle was thin, flat, white type; it looked fragile but it had surprisingly good firmness, and had good hang time (I had to work through the veggies first). I thought it was tasty, but I wish I had ordered extra charsiu, which I saw one of the "regulars" do. (The standard tanmen comes with no charsiu, unless I missed it.) Gyoza...they were fairly conventional, but the negi/nira in the filling were nice and crunchy. I would like to go back to try some of their other bowls of noodle, which looked & smelled interesting. It's curious how good this place is relative to Nokata Hope just across the Furukawabashi intersection.
In the Sannohashi-Furukawabashi area, I would rate Taiho second after Azabu Ramen Honten. Hana-no-hana (the underachieving franchize shop) comes third. I refuse to rate Syono-ya bacause of low client service orientation. I don't go near Nokata Hope; the rotten-carrot stench makes me ill just driving by the place.
[Kekke-san's Review ten minutes later] You know, I think the review I gave Tenhou is too easy. I think I was just hungry. Overall it's more an "OK+" place.
ラーメン亭 たまき Tamaki [Suguri-Ienaga Analysis]
[J]ust for your information, this ramen is "cho- kotteri" as it says on the menu, but it doesn't give you that disgusting aftertaste you would get from a really overly-kotteri ramen. Some shops attempt to set off the kotteri-ness by mixing fat with fish broth which I think is absolutely the worst combination, but, as Ienaga-san mentioned, the bits of yuzu help make the broth achieve the perfect level of kotteri-ness. . . . . We haven't tried the other types of ramen, like miso and shio, but we are hoping that they are just as good as the Tamaki ramen, so that we won't get bored after many visits.
By the way, Tamaki is not a "trendy" kind of ramen shop - it's a very traditional, small but cozy kind of place - you will like it :-)
らあめん 英 (ひで) Hide [Mine]
In truth, we hit this joint in the unsuspecting ramen hotbed of Kyodo during Golden Week. But I remember the meal quite vividly. Pure pig. From deep inside the handsome shack, the vat of pig makes love calls of "Oink." Trapped among the desperate throng outside, your large intestine responds, "Buu~."
Fifteen minutes later -- when at last you're face to face with the kakuni ramen at the counter and side by side with the other gorging feeders at the trough -- is when the pleasurable and visceral squealing, snorting, and grunting really begins. This is a refined and clever tonkotsu solution, wonderfully free of stench; smooth, rich, and just shy of pork syrup. The soup is softly browned and marbled by a shoyu-based tare, debunking those fraudulent claims that Hakata ramen is without exception set in white broth. And for better or worse, there are no acids or vinegars to vary from the captured essence of the One True Hog. But don't believe everything you might hear that this ramen is sappari or won't sit in your stomach. Maybe the soup is cleaner and goes down easier than crude oil or week-old Dr. Pepper Matcha Crappucino, but this is still tonkotsu. (By the way, they have a female Oompa Loompa working here. Too.)
Elsewhere, the slowly stewed pork kakuni is Rumpletumpskin to the menma's Polly Prissy Pants. Your chopsticks are more than adequate tools to delicately draw-and-quarter the tender but ravishing cubes of meat. As for the menma, at the precise moment when your teeth are fooled into thinking they have come upon absolute rubber, the bamboo shoot between them snaps and crunches with immense satisfaction. Lastly, the usual wan and pale men, here flown in from Kyushu, brings together and completes the classic Hakata preparation.
This is probably close to a work of art for tonkotsu hosomen lovers. The problem is that I'm not one of them. Moreover, I thought there was an over-reliance on pepper. Then there's the other question: Is it worth hauling my ass out to Setagaya-ku just for this? I think you can find comparable Hakata ramen achievement at Akanoren near the Nishi-Azabu crossing, a scant ten minutes from the office.
["You are the coolest guy in the world, this is tremendous tea."]
大宝 Taihou (Near Furukawabashi Intersection) [Kekke-san's Review]
This place is more a neighborhood Chinese restaurant than a noodlery. I'd guess it's run more as a hobby by a couple, who are the only people working there. That means they have eratic hours & not enough business scale to ensure smooth operation: they are open only from 12noon for lunch, and only between 8PM-10PM (or earlier, if they run out of Men). But they are pretty pleasant people. I tried a bowl of their Tanmen and gyoza, which were recommended on the internet. Tanmen was essentially a small-sized bowl of shio-flavored noodle, topped with a huge serving of crunchy 'yasai itame.' The noodle was thin, flat, white type; it looked fragile but it had surprisingly good firmness, and had good hang time (I had to work through the veggies first). I thought it was tasty, but I wish I had ordered extra charsiu, which I saw one of the "regulars" do. (The standard tanmen comes with no charsiu, unless I missed it.) Gyoza...they were fairly conventional, but the negi/nira in the filling were nice and crunchy. I would like to go back to try some of their other bowls of noodle, which looked & smelled interesting. It's curious how good this place is relative to Nokata Hope just across the Furukawabashi intersection.
In the Sannohashi-Furukawabashi area, I would rate Taiho second after Azabu Ramen Honten. Hana-no-hana (the underachieving franchize shop) comes third. I refuse to rate Syono-ya bacause of low client service orientation. I don't go near Nokata Hope; the rotten-carrot stench makes me ill just driving by the place.
[Kekke-san's Review ten minutes later] You know, I think the review I gave Tenhou is too easy. I think I was just hungry. Overall it's more an "OK+" place.
ラーメン亭 たまき Tamaki [Suguri-Ienaga Analysis]
[J]ust for your information, this ramen is "cho- kotteri" as it says on the menu, but it doesn't give you that disgusting aftertaste you would get from a really overly-kotteri ramen. Some shops attempt to set off the kotteri-ness by mixing fat with fish broth which I think is absolutely the worst combination, but, as Ienaga-san mentioned, the bits of yuzu help make the broth achieve the perfect level of kotteri-ness. . . . . We haven't tried the other types of ramen, like miso and shio, but we are hoping that they are just as good as the Tamaki ramen, so that we won't get bored after many visits.
By the way, Tamaki is not a "trendy" kind of ramen shop - it's a very traditional, small but cozy kind of place - you will like it :-)
らあめん 英 (ひで) Hide [Mine]
In truth, we hit this joint in the unsuspecting ramen hotbed of Kyodo during Golden Week. But I remember the meal quite vividly. Pure pig. From deep inside the handsome shack, the vat of pig makes love calls of "Oink." Trapped among the desperate throng outside, your large intestine responds, "Buu~."
Fifteen minutes later -- when at last you're face to face with the kakuni ramen at the counter and side by side with the other gorging feeders at the trough -- is when the pleasurable and visceral squealing, snorting, and grunting really begins. This is a refined and clever tonkotsu solution, wonderfully free of stench; smooth, rich, and just shy of pork syrup. The soup is softly browned and marbled by a shoyu-based tare, debunking those fraudulent claims that Hakata ramen is without exception set in white broth. And for better or worse, there are no acids or vinegars to vary from the captured essence of the One True Hog. But don't believe everything you might hear that this ramen is sappari or won't sit in your stomach. Maybe the soup is cleaner and goes down easier than crude oil or week-old Dr. Pepper Matcha Crappucino, but this is still tonkotsu. (By the way, they have a female Oompa Loompa working here. Too.)
Elsewhere, the slowly stewed pork kakuni is Rumpletumpskin to the menma's Polly Prissy Pants. Your chopsticks are more than adequate tools to delicately draw-and-quarter the tender but ravishing cubes of meat. As for the menma, at the precise moment when your teeth are fooled into thinking they have come upon absolute rubber, the bamboo shoot between them snaps and crunches with immense satisfaction. Lastly, the usual wan and pale men, here flown in from Kyushu, brings together and completes the classic Hakata preparation.
This is probably close to a work of art for tonkotsu hosomen lovers. The problem is that I'm not one of them. Moreover, I thought there was an over-reliance on pepper. Then there's the other question: Is it worth hauling my ass out to Setagaya-ku just for this? I think you can find comparable Hakata ramen achievement at Akanoren near the Nishi-Azabu crossing, a scant ten minutes from the office.
["You are the coolest guy in the world, this is tremendous tea."]
posted by hamu86 at 1:01 PM
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