A note on the words: malatang is a Chinese dish that arrived in Tokyo as a chain format — a numbing, chili-hot broth into which you load whatever ingredients you pick yourself from a chilled counter, paid for by weight. Mala is the combination of numbing Sichuan pepper and chili heat. The glass noodles are the springy kind made from mung bean starch. Azabu-Juban is a well-off neighborhood in central Tokyo with an old shopping street running through it. Prices are as of this writing (August 2026).
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Chipao Malatang Azabu-Juban on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
Hello, this is Hangover Meshi. I heard a rumor that a Chipao Malatang had opened in Azabu-Juban, so I decided to drop in for lunch. When I went to the Akasaka branch I waited about an hour lol Still, lunch should be all right? I turned up early meaning to take a quick look and go in only if it was not too busy — and it was completely empty! Lucky!
The Akasaka branch worked by the bag, but the Azabu-Juban branch weighs your ingredients at 3.1 yen per gram.
620 yen is the base. That is the broth and the glass noodles only!
Then you buy vegetables at 3.1 yen per gram. There are so many ingredients that you cannot decide.
And because it goes by weight, you inevitably take too much lol lol lol
I went for level 5 heat!
I do not really remember how much I put in lol I seem to have piled it fairly high.
Which will have brought it to somewhere around 1,400 yen?
I put all sorts in! Vegetables mainly!
One mouthful and, yes, it is good. Malatang does taste much the same wherever you have it, but being able to choose your own ingredients is a fine thing. If they could do it without the glass noodles I would actually prefer that. I wish they would offer a no-noodles, vegetables-only option.
Level 5 feels about right for the heat!
Level 10 was perfectly manageable, but it costs more lol
If you can eat without lining up, Chipao Malatang is a good thing lol Easy to drop into. That said, there are branches absolutely everywhere, so when the trend runs out somewhere a great many of them will close lol Personally I have the impression that malatang would work well as a diet option, so I hope the branches near where I live survive!
Chipao Malatang, Azabu-Juban branch (Chinese / Azabu-Juban Station, Roppongi Station, Akabanebashi Station)
Tabelog lunch rating ★★★☆☆ 3.5
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
