A note on the words: maratang is a build-your-own Chinese soup — you pick your ingredients from a case, choose a heat level, and they are cooked into a numbing-hot broth. Ma means the tingling numbness that Sichuan pepper (sansho in Japanese) leaves on the tongue, and la means chili heat, so the two sensations are named separately here. Harusame are slippery, translucent glass noodles made from starch. Komatsuna is a mild Japanese leaf green, and kikurage is wood ear, a dark, crunchy mushroom. A highball is whisky and soda, the standard Japanese long drink.
Chipao Maratang Akasaka on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
So, Hangover Meshi. It is apparently all the rage lately, is it not. “Chipao Maratang.” A place I keep hearing is seriously popular, mostly with younger people, with serious lines. I like spicy food to begin with, so I had been thinking I would like to go at least once — and then I found someone else who likes spicy food and would come along, so off we went! Any location would do, I figured, so we went to the Akasaka branch, the nearest one!
Akasaka! It has the air of a place that might have a second floor, but at a glance I do not think there was any way up…
We arrived around 7 p.m., and there was already an enormous line!
Well, we had time, so we said fine, let us get in line — and in the end we were eating an hour later, ha.
If I had gone alone I would definitely have given up partway through, ha. Since there is a line, better to go with someone to talk to, ha.
Three toppings + harusame: 825 yen
I hear the system differs by location, but
at the Akasaka branch, choosing up to three bagged toppings costs 825 yen. Beyond that, you pay for what you take. At some other branches, I am told, they weigh it and the price is set by weight. Well, so much per bag is certainly easier to follow.
For now, we decided to just grab whatever we wanted without worrying about the count.
Also, you can pick your heat level freely, but from level 5 up there is an extra charge.
The person who came with me said level 5 felt like nothing, so, quaking a little, I decided to take on level 6.
Once your toppings are in the basket, you take a seat.
There you order your heat level, any extra drinks, and the thickness of your harusame, and then it is just a matter of waiting!
Chipao Maratang, Akasaka: how the pricing works
How the pricing works
The style is: put bagged toppings in a basket, then order your heat level and harusame thickness at your seat.
What I ate: level 6, with komatsuna, chicken meatballs, straw mushrooms and kikurage. The savory-spicy broth goes down easily.
Anything beyond three items is added on, priced by what you take.
You can choose the heat freely; from level 5 up there is an extra charge.
You choose it when you order at your seat. The noodles had real chew and a strong presence.
What to know before you go
Arriving around 7 p.m. meant about an hour of waiting. Best to line up with a companion.
Adding sansho oil for more of the numbing tingle sharpens it further and makes it even better.
They have alcohol too, highballs among them.
* Prices are as of the February 2025 visit. They may have been revised since. The pricing system can differ by branch, with some charging by weight.
If it turns out to be seriously hot, I am in trouble! First things first, I had better order a highball!
And here is what arrived.
Looks delicious!!
The ingredients were komatsuna, chicken meatballs, straw mushrooms and kikurage. That was roughly it, if I remember right.
And the heat, as mentioned, at level 6. It does look a bit red, but seeing it in person it did not strike me as all that red.
One taste and: delicious!!!!!
This broth is seriously good.
Is it hot? Yes, plainly hot! But not so hot that you cannot eat it at all. It is savory-spicy, so it just keeps going down. Let me think — put next to Nakamoto’s miso tamago men or the Hokkyoku, it is nothing. Maybe level 10 would land in the same place? (Though I do not think cranking up the heat is the whole point, ha.) Komatsuna and kikurage are good things to include, since they make it look prettier. The harusame have real chew and a strong presence. They soak up the spicy broth, and that is delicious too!
If anything, halving the harusame and piling on more ingredients would probably be more satisfying — though the price would jump right along with it, ha.
There is sansho oil and the like set out on the table, and
adding more of it to build up the numbing tingle sharpens things further — delicious! Next time maybe I will go for level 8 or so.
It is hot, all right, but it is the kind of hot you get hooked on. I see — a lot of people probably do get hooked on this.
Well, the maratang here is delicious! No question about that.
If it were not for this much lining up, I can feel it having the pull to make me drop in whenever the thought struck. That addictive heat, and this savor. Harusame that somehow feel healthier than ordinary wheat noodles, and if you pile on toppings it even feels wholesome, full of vegetables. So there are plenty of ingredients here for a boom. It really is good, so why not go eat it while everyone is still talking about it? There are lots of branches, so quieter ones surely exist, ha. Akasaka was packed, though.
Chipao Maratang Akasaka (Chinese / Akasaka-mitsuke Station, Akasaka Station, Nagatacho Station)
Tabelog dinner rating ★★★☆☆ 3.6
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
