A note on the words: asa ramen (morning ramen) is a lighter bowl of noodles eaten early in the day, niboshi are dried baby sardines used to brew a deeply savory soup stock, and sarusuberi is the Japanese name for the crape myrtle tree.
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Sarusuberi 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 was looking for breakfast in Shinjuku, and look what I found! As expected of Shinjuku. To my surprise, I discovered a ramen shop open from 7:00 in the morning. It sits right inside the station building at Exit C2 of Shinjuku-sanchome Station. You won’t even get wet in the rain here. I arrived around 9:30 and there were about two customers ahead of me.
As far as I know, the only other place where you can eat ramen in the morning is Hope-ken by the National Stadium, ha.
Morning ramen — 500 yen
It seems they turn off the ticket machine in the morning, so I ordered verbally with the female staff member. Here, the natural choice is the morning ramen.
Five hundred yen is great too. When you ask for the morning ramen, you can choose between soy or salt, and apparently it is cash only.
This time I chose soy. The soy ramen in the photo did look good, after all.
After a short wait, the ramen arrived.
It looks delicious, ha.
The noodles are thin, straight noodles. Taking a bite, the smooth texture is very pleasant. The soup is a tasty soy broth with a solid flavor of niboshi (dried sardines) coming through. This is really comforting.
It is perfect for a hangover.
The toppings are just chicken breast chashu, kaiware (daikon sprouts), and negi (green onion), but for ramen eaten in the morning, that is more than enough. With a clean, non-greasy taste and a flavorful broth, it makes total sense as a ramen designed for the morning, ha. Really good.
So while I thought there were hardly any places to get breakfast, if you look, they are out there. When it comes to ramen for breakfast in Shinjuku, this is the place. I am happy to add another spot to my repertoire. Perhaps because the noodles are thin, it came out quickly, and it feels like you could use it much like a tachigui soba (a stand-and-eat noodle counter). Recommended!
By the way, regarding the shop’s name, sarusuberi (crape myrtle), it is written with characters that look as if they should read hyakunichiko, so I was surprised to learn it was read “sarusuberi.”
Huh, so that is how those characters are written…
Sarusuberi (Tsukemen / Shinjuku Sanchome Station, Shinjuku Station, Shinjukugyoen-mae 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?
