A note on the words: udon are thick wheat noodles, served hot in broth or cold with a dipping sauce, and a kaiseki is a set meal that arrives as a run of small courses in a fixed order. Zaru udon means the noodles come chilled on a draining tray with the sauce alongside. Mentaiko is pollock roe cured with chili, salty and mildly hot. Otsukuri is another word for sashimi, mozuku is a fine seaweed usually served in vinegar, and shochu is a distilled spirit, commonly drunk long with soda water. Shime is the closing dish of a drinking night.
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Tsurutontan Roppongi on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
Hey, this is Hangover Meshi. If you’re in Roppongi, escaping “Tsurutontan” is very nearly impossible^^. Today I was invited out for drinks. The place: Tsurutontan in Roppongi. A single bowl of udon at lunch does feel a touch expensive for udon (though eat three portions of noodles and you’re more than satisfied!), but come evening the courses drop to the 7,000-yen range with all-you-can-drink included, and suddenly it looks like good value. On top of that there are private rooms on the second floor, so it’s an easy place to use!
Premium udon kaiseki (with 2 hours of all-you-can-drink): 7,500 yen
Udon kaiseki (with 2 hours of all-you-can-drink): 6,000 yen
Shabu-shabu hot pot (with 2 hours of all-you-can-drink): 8,000 yen
This time, the udon kaiseki. Six thousand yen with all-you-can-drink is cheap!
First, barley shochu with soda! Nothing starts without it!
Udon that arrives the instant things begin^^. A good choice, one that makes it clear this is an udon restaurant and this is an udon kaiseki. Thin, one-mouthful noodles, served cold, and the condiments plus the quail egg in the middle work nicely.
Raw vegetables, edamame, duck, mozuku seaweed, and a little bowl of something like cream cheese.
Each one is only a small amount, but arriving together on a vessel this large it looks lavish.
Then again, Tsurutontan does love a big vessel.
The most orthodox sashimi there is: lean tuna and sea bream. It doesn’t get more sashimi-like than this, lol
The dish this time was grilled salmon. Plenty of fish on the menu, which goes well with a shochu soda — that makes me happy.
And the closing course is serious about it: any udon you like, they say.
After a great deal of agonizing, I went with the mentaiko cream udon.
This is it! It had been a while since I’d had the mentaiko cream udon, and one sip of the soup — so good!!!
By the way, I was already full, so I had a half portion of noodles. Even that is a lot, mind. The soup is seriously delicious. The plump, springy thick udon is good too. Say Tsurutontan and it really does come back to the udon. It had been a long time, but it’s still delicious! I drank the soup to the last drop^^
This is the zaru udon the person before me had ordered. The zaru udon was properly chilled and looked delicious too!
So there you have it — 6,000 yen with all-you-can-drink, six thousand! Dirt cheap. And on top of that you get to pick whatever udon you want at the end, which is astonishing. If you’re thinking of coming here for udon in the evening, I’d go so far as to say you’re better off just committing to this course. A private room, an unhurried evening, at this price — it’s a place people are going to use aggressively. As long as I’m around Roppongi, I feel like I’ll be back at least ten more times^^
Tsurutontan Roppongi (Udon (Wheat noodles) / Roppongi Station, Roppongi-itchome Station, Azabu-juban Station)
Tabelog dinner rating ★★★☆☆ 3.0
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
