Menya Sou (麺屋 宗) - Special Uma Shio Soba + Sakura!

It is the sakura season now in Japan! Personally I think that it is one of the most beautiful moments of the year. I visited the Meguro river and took a stroll along the bank lined by sakura. Beautiful!

Sakura at Meguro river

It was nearly lunchtime and I was looking for something to eat. 

And just when I was looking around, I spotted this signboard of a ramen store! What a coincidence. 

Following the signboard, I reached Menya Sou (麺屋　宗). Situated along Yamate Dori near the Nakameguro station, it is a small ramen joint with only about 10 counter seats. The main outlet of Menya Sou is at Takadanobaba, and this Nakameguro outlet is its 2nd one.

The note on the left of the picture shows the opening hours of the store. But the information that is more important is the number of servings that they serve per session. Over lunch, there is a limit of only 50 servings, and 100 for dinner!

Menya Sou is an award-winning ramen joint - It was selected by the readers of magazine "Tokyo Weekly" as the ramen of the year in 2007 and 2008, among other awards. Its specialties are shio ramen and tsukemen (dipped ramen)

I ordered the shop's recommendation, Special Uma Shio Soba (980 yen)

The ramen is topped with a whole tamago, bamboo shoot, 3 pieces of char siew, mizuna, spring onion and shredded chili. The char siew is grilled over charcoal before it is served, and I guess it is thinly sliced to suit the simple shio soup. The menma is hand-shredded, so it is much longer than the usual menma served. Something special. 

The soup is a combination of clear chicken soup and seafood stock, together with 2 types of salts. It was tasty and light, matching the toppings that are also simple.

Menya Sou also prepared 3 types condiments for us to add to the ramen and play with the flavours - pepper, plum vinegar and its original "sou space". In particular, the plum vinegar (the red one in the center) is for the shio ramen. I added some to my soup - it made the soup more refreshing and even more drinkable. I finished the soup until its last drop!

Pepper, Plum Vinegar and Sou Spice

Another thing that I noticed was the ramen bowl. The bowl used seems to be more sophisticated than those used in other ramen shops.

It was only later that I found out why. The owner of Menya Sou is Yanagi Munenori (柳　宗紀), who is the grand nephew of Yanagi Sori (柳　宗理), one of the iconic industrial designer in Japan and was passionate about promotion of local crafts. The shop uses designs of Yanagi Sori, which include some kitchenware as well. No wonder the bowls look good!

A bowl of ramen that I will recommend for those who like shio ramen. I will try to visit their main store in Takadanobaba next time!

Ramen Data - Menya Sou NakameguroAddress: 3-5-55 Nakameguro, Meguro-ku, Tokyo

Types: Shio ramen, Tsuke-men

Rating: 9/10

AFURI Harajuku - Yuzu Shoyu Noodle

Visited one of my favourite ramens in Tokyo again for this week's ramen fix.

AFURI has 2 outlets in Tokyo, one in Ebisu and another in Harajuku. I visited the one in Harajuku, which is about 3-4 minutes walk from the JR Harajuku station. There was a short queue outside, and I waited for about 10 mins before managing to get in.

Clean and simple shop

One of the specialty of Afuri is its char siew, which is charcoal grilled before it is served. This gives the char siew a nice smoky fragrance, and some burnt on the surface that makes it look good.

The shop only has counter seats, so I can see my char siew grilling right in front of me. Smells good!

Grilling...

Afuri's standard is its Yuzu Shio Ramen, but I ordered the Yuzu Shoyu Ramen for a change. There are also 2 types of noodle to choose - the normal narrow noodles and a special "shinku hirauchi" noodles. The latter has more texture and is more chewy.

The presentation was mouth-watering. What I like about them is also that its a bowl that is simple yet flavoursome, unlike some others that while it is delicious their richness made you feel full halfway eating them.

Since harajuku is a often-visited tourist area, it will be easy to drop by too. Some ramen shops are really difficult to find!

Ramen Data - AFURI HarajukuAddress: 3-63-1 Sendagaya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo

Types: Yuzu shio noodle, shoyu shio noodle, tsuke-men
Rating: 9/10

Keisuke Tokyo (けいすけ東京) - Tokyo Shio Ramen

Taking a break from going to Ramen Champion, I visited Keisuke Tokyo today for my ramen fix.

It is one of my favourite ramen places in Singapore, but it is a little off the places that I usually go to so I don't frequent it that much.

Just happened that I was at Suntec, I decided pop by instead.

And they have further made some improvements since my last visit!

After sitting down, the attentive waitress passed me this order form to fill up.

Make your own RAMEN !!

Looking further down the form makes me understand what it exactly is for. After choosing the ramen that you would like to order, you can further customise your ramen using this form by indicating:

- Strength / thickness of the soup (3 levels)

- Amount of oil on the ramen (4 levels)

- Hardness of the noodles (4 levels)

- If you do not want any toppings due to preference (e.g. bamboo shoot, etc.)

Customisation

While it seems to be possible to customise our ramen at some of the other ramen joints in Singapore, this is by far the most structured way in letting customers customise their ramen. I am further impressed by Keisuke's sophistication!

They seem to have added one more type of condiment to the existing ones - bonito flakes.

With this and others like spicy beansprout and chopped onion, there are even more room to play with your ramen.

I ordered the Tokyo Shio Ramen with egg ($13++) today.

Good presentation

Clear Shio Soup

I won't delve too deeply into the ramen today. But in short, it was a good bowl as per the usual Keisuke standard.

Last but not least, there was another surprise for me this visit...

Keisuke is going to open their 2nd outlet named "Tonkotsu King" in Tanjong Pagar on 8 Aug (Monday)!

The new shop is located at Orchid Hotel in Tras Link, near Tanjong Pagar MRT station.

Let's see if I have the time to pop by for lunch on Monday.