Ramen Happiness: March 2015

Back in January we visited Tokyo to attend the Grand Sumo Tournament. We arrived the day before and it was the perfect time to finally visit the Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum. I had been waiting and hoping for this opportunity for a while. Located a short walk from the Shin-Yokohama station, the “museum” is really just a food themed amusement park, and my version of heaven.

There was a line queued up outside the entrance of people waiting to pay the small entrance fee. Once we had our tickets we headed down to the lower level to the shops and had our first glimpse at the unbelievably long lines that were snaking their way up and down staircases and into the depths of the building. After examining our guide we decided to try out a few different options.

The first shop we chose was called こむらさき(Komurasaki). We finally found the end of the line where it had weaved its way under the main staircase and commenced our first wait. It was surprisingly shorter than would be expected what with the amount of people that had been ahead of us. Clearly the procedure for getting people in and out of the small dining rooms has been perfected. We bought tickets for their specialty tonkotsu ramen and they were snatched up by one of the staff members before we were even close to getting a seat.

When we were ushered to chairs around a large, communal table it was only about 5 minutes before we were presented with our first bowl. Wanting to have room for more than one sampling of noodles, I chose the mini sized bowl. It was small, but still substantial. The broth was rich and salty; the flavor of the pork being the center of attention. Thin noodles were hidden under a juicy slice of chashu pork, a pinch of bean sprouts, corn and green onion. Their signature touch was a healthy dash of roasted garlic chips to top of a savory, flavorful bowl of noodles.

With no time to waste we tucked in to our first bowl, eager to choose our second shop. Unfortunately, one of our top choices was closed for the day. Instead, we decided to try out the restaurant whose owner is dubbed “The Ramen Demon”. The guy breeds his own chickens for use in his soup base… that is dedicated passion. The line for this 支那そばや (Shina Soba-ya) was also long, winding down the staircase from the second level, but it only took us about 20 minutes to get to the door.

Wanting to see what all the fuss was about, we chose the chef-perfected shoyu ramen. It was not a disappointment. The soup was light, but full of flavor. The fact that the chef traveled around the country just to hand select each ingredient in order to create a top quality soup is apparent. Sourcing special flour for optimal noodles was another way he ensured that his dish would stand out. It was impressive to try something so well thought out and honed to perfection. The specialty noodles were topped simply with a couple slices of roast pork, some bamboo shoots, a sheet of nori and shredded green onion.

After drinking every last drop of the broth we felt we were at our limit. After a brief look around the rest of the museum we did a couple laps around the gift shop and then departed. The Ramen Museum was a great experience for me. Getting to see so many different types of dishes from all over the Japan created by chefs with different backgrounds and methods was humbling. There is still so much left to learn about the creation of ramen and so many different versions left to try.