{"id":596,"date":"2020-01-28T09:38:35","date_gmt":"2020-01-28T09:38:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/willchews.com\/?p=596"},"modified":"2020-02-06T03:49:21","modified_gmt":"2020-02-06T03:49:21","slug":"ramen038","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/willchews.com\/index.php\/ramen038\/","title":{"rendered":"Ramen No. 38: Tonikaku | Deluxe Aburasoba"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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As the subpar photo here suggests, I visited Tonikaku early on in my ramen explorations.\u00a0 As an underinformed (but determined) ramen eater, I chose shops to visit by searching Tabelog<\/a>–Japan’s Yelp, except better and more trustworthy–and working my way down the ratings.\u00a0 Tomita, one of the best shops in the Kanto area and known most for its tonkotsu-gyokai<\/a>, was near at the top of that list.\u00a0 However, when I arrived at Tomita at 10:45 am, I mistakenly thought I would only have to wait 15 minutes in line to get first seating\u00a0 at 11:00; it became an early lesson on the seiriken system.<\/p>

Seiriken<\/i><\/a> (\u6574\u7406\u5238, numbered tickets) are used by popular ramen shops to avoid overly long, neighborhood resident-annoying lines in Japan’s mixed-use neighborhoods. (More information here about how Japan’s zoning system is different from–and more effective than–North America’s<\/a>, really worth a read) Generally, shops start handing out seiriken early in the morning in exchange for a 1000 yen cash deposit, valid for use at a set timeslot later that day, such as 11:00am to 12:00 noon.\u00a0 One can get a seiriken later on that day, but it almost inevitably will be good for seating a few hours hence.\u00a0 My arrival at Tomita at 10:45, therefore, meant that all the seiriken until 2pm were already given out and I would have to find something to do in Matsudo until then.\u00a0 So, Anyway…<\/p><\/div>

…is what “Tonikaku” means in Japanese, and it was the best nearby shop that I found on Ramen Database<\/a> as soon as I realized I was not in the mood for hanging out in Matsudo for three hours.\u00a0 Located just four blocks away from Tomita, Tonikaku is owned by the same group as the former.\u00a0 It’s a good ramen shop in its own right, winning plaudits both for its tonkotsu-gyokai broth as well as its soupless (\u6c41\u306a\u3057, sh<\/em>irunashi<\/i>) aburasoba<\/a>, but the lines there were less than 10 minutes long.\u00a0 Never having had shirunashi ramen before, I decided to try Tonikaku and leave Tomita for another day.\u00a0\u00a0<\/div>
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Aburasoba<\/i>, (\u6cb9\u305d\u3070, “oil noodles”) uses similar components as ramen, but rather than the tare flavoring being mixed with pork\/fish\/chicken stock to make ramen broth, the tare is mixed with fat\/oil.\u00a0 To compensate for the lack of broth, one usually receives more noodles in an aburasoba or tsukemen<\/a>\u00a0order than they would in a ramen one, and the noodles are usually quite thick.\u00a0 But even my “small”-size order was enough for my hearty appetite, in part because the aburasoba still came with a small cup of broth on the side for finishing it off.<\/p>

Having had aburasoba for the first time, I instantly loved it because of how the shoyu tare and oil draped themselves over the thick and chewy noodles.\u00a0 While I’ve had numerous aburasoba since and now have much greater perspective on the style, at the time it was a revelation.\u00a0 Ordering it as zenbunose <\/em><\/a>meant four slices of chashu, a smoked ajitama egg, several sheets of nori, and a great deal of menma bamboo shoots.\u00a0 \u00a0The chashu were generous cuts of shoulder, solid but not exceptional, making for an all-around solid rather than an exceptional bowl.<\/p><\/div>

Yet my visit to this shop (by way of Tomita) was important in a number of other ways: it introduced me to aburasoba, which is one of my favorite ramen styles; and it gave me a harsh lesson of the seiriken system and the lengths to which I would have to go if I wanted to snag an early seat at a shop.\u00a0\u00a0<\/div>
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Tier 3<\/a><\/b><\/div>
Q Factor: <10 minutes (Weekday 1100)<\/div>
Sense: Dark shop, relief at not having totally wasted a trip out to Matsudo<\/div>
Price: \u00a5730 (Small) + \u00a5420 (With Everything)<\/div>
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\u514e\u306b\u89d2 \u677e\u6238\u5e97 (Tonikaku Matsudo-ten)<\/div>
\u3012271-0077 \u5343\u8449\u770c\u677e\u6238\u5e02\u6839\u672c462 \u6bd4\u5609\u30d3\u30eb1F<\/div>
Matsudo Station (JR Joban Line; Chiyoda Line; Shin-Keisei Line)<\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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