味玉和風塩らぁ麺 - Shio Ramen with Egg, ￥780
A little off the beaten path and just down the way from one of my favourite not-so-well-known areas of Tokyo, Yanaka, is the pretty recently opened Hidamali. As the weather is cooling down it's obviously a good time for ramen. As such, the ramen magazines have hit the stands and in trying to offer a little variety I thought I would hit up a new store with a first for this blog - shio ramen. (salt)
Being a new store in a quiet area on a rainy night, there weren't a great deal of customers, although it has a pleasant atmosphere inside and was definitely favourable to the rain. It's certainly not your average dimly-lit ramen store.
And you can stay for a drink...
or not...
Shio is often the forgotten type of ramen with the recent boom (by which I mean a few years before I had ever eaten ramen) of tonkotsu gyokai tsukemen with flavour bursting from the bowl and double soups and all the new innovations one could imagine. Shio is thought to be the least interesting which leads some to think it's boring.
But this one doesn't seem to be...
Everything about this bowl of ramen was great. From one of the most flavourful eggs I've had to the light to the peppery flavoured soup, there was nothing boring about this at all. In fact, the soup is so complex that it is made from four different kinds of salt. I dare you to be able to tell the difference though.
If you've still got some room left head upstairs and have a drink at a cool little bar where the menu is accompanied by the owner's reviews of recent films.
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