A note on the words: iekei is the Yokohama-born style of ramen built on a pork-and-chicken bone broth seasoned with soy tare, eaten with thick noodles and sheets of nori. Shime is the closing dish of a drinking night, usually ramen or rice. Shio means salt, the other tare a shop can build the same broth on.
Machida Shoten Ikebukuro Higashiguchi on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
Drinkers of the world, thank you for waiting. It is Hangover Meshi time.
Well now, that was another good drinking session…
Just as I was thinking of heading home, I got talked into one last bowl of ramen, and was marched off to “Machida Shoten Ikebukuro Higashiguchi” by the east exit of Ikebukuro. I had no idea there was a ramen shop open this late around here.
I had not heard much about Machida Shoten, but it turns out to be one branch of an iekei ramen chain with over 800 shops across Japan. Open until the middle of the night, which is a fine thing!
In we go, then, and time to order.
Now then, I look at the menu and there is a half size on it!
Half-noodle ramen! That will do nicely.
First, a drink!
This drink-you-have-when-you-should-have-gone-home, the drink after the drinking, is a lovely thing, ha.
A full-size iekei is, understandably, a bit heavy after a night of drinking. Which is why having a half-size bowl as an option for nights like this is so welcome! With the noodle portion held down, you can finish it comfortably right to the end as your shime. A very well-judged landing spot.
What I want in the end is the soup, ha.
The soup is the iekei tonkotsu-shoyu, pork bone and chicken bone simmered long and slow, with a thick, glossy feel on the tongue and the sharpness of the shoyu tare cutting into it. It is rich and it is salty, yet somehow it goes down easily!
The noodles are the medium-thick, springy kind, and they carry the soup up nicely. You can pick the firmness, so for a shime it is also good to go a touch soft and let it slide gently into a tired stomach. Even at half the volume, the iekei heft is properly still there.
The big sheets of nori are best dipped into the soup first and then wrapped around the noodles — delicious! Getting a quail egg with it is a small pleasure too. Being able to change the flavor partway through with the chopped raw onion, doubanjiang (fermented chili bean paste), garlic and vinegar on the table is part of the fun of iekei. The crisp texture and bite of the onion add a lightness to the heavy soup, which is why I end up putting rather a lot of onion in.
By the way, this one is the shio half-noodle ramen!
I was given a little of this one too, and although I had assumed “shio equals light,” it was nothing of the sort, ha. The richness of the pork bone is left intact and the salt tare draws out a sweetness and a roundness, coming together like a potage. The salt does not stand up in sharp edges the way it does in the shoyu. Cracking soup.
Going as a pair and being able to share a shio half-noodle and a regular tonkotsu one is a treat! Split one bowl of ramen between you and you both just get the same flavor, after all.
Oh dear, I have gone and eaten again… ha.
Once you finish and the satisfaction fills you up, the guilt suddenly arrives, ha. Still, it is open until three in the morning, so it is a fine thing to have a shop you can slip quietly into on the way home from the second or third bar of the night. Being able to choose a half bowl especially! I may well drop in again the next time I get drunk nearby, ha.
May you meet something delicious today too!
Machida Shoten Ikebukuro Higashiguchi (Ramen / Ikebukuro Station, Higashi-Ikebukuro Station, Higashi-Ikebukuro-Yonchome Station)
Tabelog dinner rating ★★★☆☆ 3.4
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
