A note on the words: chuka soba is the older name for soy-sauce ramen, and tokusei (“special”) means the bowl with the full set of toppings. The broth here is built on soy sauce, chicken and dried fish, with no chemical seasoning.
Jikaseimen Robinson 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.
When the stomach feels heavy — when you are hungover — you want a soy-sauce ramen, do you not? Today it will probably mean queueing, but I am going to take on a famous ramen shop in Toranomon: Jikaseimen Robinson. Robinson’s signature is ramen with no chemical seasoning, made with freshly cut house noodles pressed every morning in the noodle room inside the shop. Looking forward to it.
Now, rumour has it that the difficulty of actually eating here is quite high. It fills up immediately, and thirty-minute waits are routine. They are only open for three hours, 11:00 to 14:00, so dawdle and the day can be over in an instant. So I arrived at about 11:10.
Inside, several people already waiting.
You buy a ticket from the machine just inside the door, and they tell you roughly how long the wait will be. Ticket bought, you go through to the room on the right, which serves as a waiting room at lunch and presumably as ordinary seating in the evening. My wait was about fifteen minutes, but the customers kept arriving until the room was packed — by the end people were being told an hour and a half, which effectively means the day is done.
The difficulty really is high.
There is chuka soba and tsukemen, and going tokusei gets you the full complement of toppings. You can choose thin noodles or hand-rubbed flat noodles — and it has to be the hand-rubbed flat ones.
A short wait and my turn came.
It is essentially self-service; you pour your own tea. Paper aprons are on the tray at the counter and tissues under it. (Rubbish goes in the bin yourself.)
And here is the tokusei chuka soba.
That looks good.
The tokusei chuka soba is the signature bowl with everything on it: three kinds of wonton, a seasoned egg and thick-cut chashu. Having pork, chicken and prawn wontons all together is particular to this shop, and the smooth wrappers and the filling with its faint note of ginger are very good indeed.
The broth layers several domestic chickens with Rausu kombu, katsuobushi, and hirako and katakuchi sardine niboshi, brought together around Marushima soy sauce from Shodoshima — a chicken-and-seafood soy broth. The first mouthful is the sweetness of the soy and a mellow kaeshi, and behind it come the faint bitterness of the niboshi and the savour of the dashi. A broth that is restrained in sweetness and sharply drawn, and it soaks gently into a hungover stomach. This broth is outstanding.
The noodles are cut fresh in the shop each morning. Several carefully chosen domestic wheats, deliberately served without ageing, giving a smooth feel on the tongue, a lightness that comes apart as you bite, and the fragrance of the wheat. The broad flat cut carries the clear dashi up beautifully.
The low-temperature-cooked chashu is served folded, so the underside touching the broth is moist while the top stays rare. The savour of the meat and a faint smokiness open up as you chew. The seasoned egg has a deep yolk, well soaked in a sweet-salty marinade, and the tender menma tips and spinach make a clean pause between mouthfuls.
Partway through, change the flavour with the condiments on the table. Since they are there, I tried all of them, one at a time. First a pinch of black shichimi, which puts a sharp edge on the aroma; then a scattering of fish powder to thicken the outline of the dashi. A very little powdered sansho lets a clean numbness through, and finally one turn of the black pepper mill. Each small addition changes the face of the same bowl, which is a pleasure.
Excellent. No wonder people queue. A gentle soy ramen is exactly right for a hungover stomach. The noodles are the hand-rubbed flat sort but they are smooth and come apart lightly, so they do not weigh on you. Normally a slightly smaller portion of noodles suits me, but I finished it without thinking — and drank the broth to the bottom as well.
Ahh. I would queue for this again.
I suspect that arriving a little before 11:00 would more or less guarantee you get in, so if you are going to aim for it, that is the time to go.
May you meet something good to eat today too.
Jikaseimen Robinson (ramen / Toranomon Hills Station, Toranomon Station, Uchisaiwaicho Station)
Tabelog lunch rating ★★★★☆ 4.0
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
もう一杯どうぞ！
