Had this lunch with friend after our daily dose of table tennis game, and decided to check out this famous tsukemen stall, hope that there'll be lesser customers today due to the rain.
The simple signboard.
哲 つけ麺 (Tetsu Tsukemen) is located somewhere in Bunkyo-ku (文京区) and I'll definitely pass by the stall everyday when cycling to school. There's this distinctive fragrance of preparing the broth (or soup, for some) whenever I pass-by in the morning.
Even so, I didn't had the chance to try it until today as whenever I'm on the way back (usually during lunch time), there's this long queue waiting outside the stall.
Well, when it comes to the best tsukemen in Tokyo and the patient Japanese, it's not unusual to see long queue outside stall, sometimes close to 20 people in the narrow walkway. Inside the Tetsu's stall only accommodates 9 guests at a time.
There's this simple rule in Japan, that the longer the crowd's queue, the better the stuffs/products will be (this doesn't apply on everything though).
Like any ramen outlets, Tetsu uses a vending machine to take order and collect the money. It serves as the menu as well, to show what they're offering.
Different types of noodles they're offering.
There's the normal chilled noodle (つけめん), warm noodle (あつもり) and mixture of both chilled and warm noodle (つけあつ).
While normal portion comes with 200g of noodle, there's the bigger and largest portion at 300g and 400g each.
Noticed the "smoke" coming out from the side? It's packed with the full flavour of the cooking broth. Yeah.... the smell itself is one of the best marketing tool to attract customers who chose the food by nose (like me hah!).
While normally one gotta wait for 15~30 mins for their turn, ours took just 10 mins, with 3 salarymen ahead of us. There's the staff who will be confirming our orders before we're being seated inside.
Inside the stall is just pretty simple settings but looking at the staffs preparing the meal is certainly feasting enough not to get bored inside. Besides, they serve pretty fast too, so don't need to wait that long.
Promoting their take-out menu, also advertising their achievement of being the best tsukemen in Tokyo consecutively in year 2008 and 2009 (possible 2010 too!).
Comical instructions to show how to enjoy the in-house tsukemen.
If you may have noticed, the method of eating tsukemen is different than ordinary ramen which the noodle is soaked inside the broth.
First you pick up the noodle and dip it into the broth for awhile. Then, send the noodle into your mouth like how you usually devour noodle dishes.
The chilled noodle, much thicker compared to the ones I had in other places.
My broth (cooked with pork's bone with some seafood). I ordered their special and it comes with an egg (味玉; flavoured egg) and a few pieces of thick char-siew (Japanese style).
This pic didn't show how much of stuffs are underneath the broth though, just a tip of the iceberg heh.
My overall set, 特製つけ麺 (special tsukemen). Cost 1000 yen.
Friend's set, あつもり (atsumori). He ordered the warm noodle version which the noodle is soaked in a lighter broth. Cost 750 yen.
Tetsu's tsukemen definitely lives up the name as the best tsukemen in town. While the noodle can be "replicated" by others, the secret to the victory lies within the thick broth which is rich in flavour, definitely beats any other contemporary Japanese soups/broths. It's a flavour that I didn't tasted before, surely this is exciting and I'll be looking forward to try it again next time!
I was fortunate enough to had try this famous tsukemen. I don't really had the patience to wait outside the stall with others for quite some time so chose to try it during rainy day is a good idea heh. Maybe I'll be dining here again, while there's not much people around.
Here are 2 reviews by other folks on blogs.
Rameniac
Ramen Adventures (who had enough patience to queue for an hour just to eat the tsukemen!)
People would easily mistaken "tetsu" as the kanji "鉄" (metal), but this is the proper kanji "哲" (philosophy).
Address:
東京都文京区千駄木4-1-14
4-1-14 Sendagi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo.
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To be honest, the noodle doesn't look that appetizing, but somehow, something tells me it is super delicious. Gonna give it a try if I happen to be in that area :P
ReplyDeletehahah not that hard to go, walkable distance from one of the JR Yamanote line stations.
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