A note on the words: tsukemen is ramen served deconstructed — cold noodles on one plate, a concentrated hot broth in a bowl beside it, and you dip. Shibori (“pressed”) is this shop’s word for a broth made by reducing one ingredient down hard: crab in one bowl, black cod in the other. Tamago kake gohan is a raw egg stirred through hot rice.
Gonokami Suisan on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
Drinkers, thank you for waiting. It is Hangover Meshi time.
This time: Gonokami Suisan in Awajicho. Unusually, I was not hungover — just after ramen. I had heard there was a tsukemen with a “crab press”, and as a lover of anything with a shell I could not leave it alone, so I made the trip out to Awajicho. On arrival, a sign reading “fresh-fish ramen”. Fresh fish… ramen?
Looking it up on the way, the shop’s concept is “why not drink a fish?”, and it is known for its cod ramen, the Gindara-shibori — pressed black cod. Right. Pressed black cod. But I did want the pressed crustacean. So this time, the Tsukemen Kani-shibori. The friend I came with had the black cod, so I could beg a taste.
Into the shop, buy a ticket from the vending machine and hand it to the staff. I found out afterwards that you can ask for a smaller portion of noodles if you say so. I should have said.
For now, sit down with a Heartland and settle in.
Ahh.
After a while, the tsukemen arrives.
The smell of crab comes up with the steam.
This is unmistakably crab.
A chicken paitan broth with reduced crab dissolved into it. One mouthful and the crab bursts across your mouth — a fierce crab flavour. “Crab press” is exactly the right phrase, and yet there is almost no fishiness or off-note to it, just wave after wave of sweet savour. Picked crab meat surfaces from the bottom of the bowl too.
The noodles are house-made, wholemeal and straight. Medium-thick and slightly brown, with a springy chew and a clear sweetness of wheat. Since the dipping broth is so rich, noodles with this much substance are exactly right. Lift them properly, coat them in the crab broth, and in they go.
On the noodle plate, a few slices of low-temperature-cooked chashu. Moist and tender, with the sweetness of the pork left intact — enough on its own to drink beer with. Spinach and sudachi citrus are served alongside, and squeezing the sudachi into the broth partway through adds a clean, sharp edge to all that richness.
A broth this concentrated goes beautifully with beer.
Even once the noodles are gone, you keep alternating sips of crab broth with sips of beer.
The real business may start here. I had, in fact, also ordered the prawn-oil tamago kake gohan — white rice dressed in fragrant prawn oil, with a raw egg on top. Obviously going to be good.
And then —
Put the chashu and greens you saved onto the rice and pour the crab dipping broth over the top. Not quite a rice porridge, not quite an ochazuke: prawn and crab together in one gloriously sinful bowl. The broken egg turns everything glossy, and it is indescribably good, and indescribably indulgent. Crab experienced to the full. Thoroughly satisfied.
And this is the Gindara-shibori ramen.
I got a mouthful of the broth. The first thing that came to mind was:
… that is extremely cod.
Apparently it is made from roasted black cod and water, nothing else, and the toasted-fish aroma drifts up at once. Creamy, but gently salted, with the sweetness and savour of the fat coming through slowly. It really is very cod indeed.
The cod broth as well — “fresh-fish ramen” and “why not drink a fish?” turn out to be exactly what the shop delivers. The kani-shibori really was very good. Crab-broth tsukemen: strongly recommended, do try it. And the combination with the indulgent prawn-oil egg rice is absolutely worth it, so I would order that even if it means asking for fewer noodles.
May you meet something good to eat today too.
Gonokami Suisan (ramen / Awajicho Station, Ogawamachi Station, Kanda Station)
Tabelog dinner rating ★★★★☆ 4.0
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
