中華そば富田食堂 - Tomita Shokudo, Matsudo

中華そば (中) - Shoyu Ramen (Medium) ￥700

   Yes, I'm out in Matsudo again for some ramen - which tends to happen when you work in the area and no, this isn't the famous Tomita that you may have seen on TV and tops all the lists of must-have ramen. The main reason being that I finish work in the evening and Tomita has run out of soup sometime during the afternoon. However, this is in the same family of shops and is open well into the night.
    This store is tiny and seats a row of about 7 or 8 people just inside the door. There is only counter space and the staff had baseball commentary blaring from the radio.

     It's nice to see when a place offers only a few selections as you can assume that they are specialists - They had a shoyu tsukemen and a shoyu ramen in 3 sizes. I chose the ramen.

     It came with a healthy amount of negi, wakame and menma and some peppered chashu. It definitely exceeded my expectations of a bowl of shoyu ramen and was bursting with flavour - like an entire barbecue had been jammed into the bowl. The flame-grilled chashu was the main protagonist in this.

     The entire bowl was demolished within a few minutes. I'm glad I found this place and will definitely be returning. Matsudo isn't known for a lot, but it's 2/2 so far in my experience.

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兎に角 - Tonikaku, Matsudo

豚骨魚介ラーメン, Tonkotsu Gyokai Ramen, ￥700

   After speaking to a friend who works in Matsudo about the quality of the ramen stores, I could only take her advice and try out Tonikaku. She mentioned that it often has a line, however I was lucky enough to be able to walk straight inside.

     Once inside though,  I realised that I was in for quite the bowl of ramen as I was greeted by a room full of silent adult men, none of whom seemed to know each other beyond the college kids in the corner. This meant it was ramen otaku territory.

     Although it resembles a swedish sauna from the outside, Tonikaku is another store that has just the bare essentials inside.

     There's seating for about 20 and the turnover seemed quite high in spite of, or perhaps because of, the cold rainy weather outside. (there isn't much better than a hot bowl of ramen on a freezing night.)

    The meat was delicious - lightly peppered and was so big and flat you could land a plane on it. Actually, it kind of resembeld an air craft carrier floating in the ocean only that the soup was so thick that not much could pass through it.

    One of the other customers did something I had never seen before and requested more soup to which the staff responded quickly - maybe this is one of the quirks of the store?  I don't think my arteries would have been too pleased with me had I tried the same thing though. However, I did manage to happily finish my bowl. It was a tonkotsu gyokai broth, or a pork and fish combination. Delicious!

    I left with a sense of accomplishment and would happily go to Tonikaku again whenever I'm in the area.

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