Menya Suzuharu (麺屋鈴春): Shop of All Styles; Hongo Sanchome, Tokyo

Newcomer to this year’s Tabelog Ramen Top 100 is Menya Suzuharu located out near Hongo Sanchome station in central Tokyo. The area is quickly becoming a hub for top ramen as shops like Tsukemen Kinryu, Chuka Soba Nishino, and Ramen Daishi are all within walking distance of Hongo Sanchome station. Despite being in a competitive ramen district like this one, Suzuharu has still managed to shine with their comprehensive menu offering a variety of different ramen styles, something not typically seen in other top 100 shops. While most shops stick to just one ramen, Suzuharu’s menu grew to cater to their main customer base, the nearby salarymen and women who work nearby who prefer more variety so they can make repeat visits without having to order the same thing every time. While Suzuharu claim everything on their menu is a recommended item, the best seller seems to be their take on the trending, Chicken Shoyu Ramen, so I decided to swing by and give it a try.

Unfortunately the ticket machine is all in Japanese, but they have an English menu in the back which corresponds to the layout of the machine if you ask. If you’d rather keep to yourself, the ticket machine has photos of their two best selling ramen so it shouldn’t be too difficult placing your order. I opted to try their Chicken Shoyu Ramen with Ajitama soft boiled egg as well as a side of their chashu over rice.

After buying my tickets, I was seated at the counter and on a weekday as it opened, I would say the shop was about 75% capacity. By the time I finished my meal, there was a line of about 10 outside so be sure to plan accordingly if you’re thinking of making a visit. As I mentioned before, the shops is incredibly popular with the salary men and women who work nearby so the lunch peak of about 1230-230 pm is probably the most crowded it’ll get. Within 15 minutes of being seated, my ramen was ready and I was soon presented with this, golden amber bowl of ramen.

Definitely the best part about the ramen was the soup and I can see why this shop has been getting the praise I’ve repeatedly seen online. When you break it down, it’s essentially a New Wave Chicken Shoyu using both a refined chicken for the stock and a shoyu blend for the tare, seasoning. What I thought set the bowl apart though was their generous ladle of chiyu, chicken oil which you can see the outline of floating on the surface and around the rim of my spoon in the photo below. The addictingly smooth and rich chicken oil coat everything from the strands of noodles to your lips slurping them all up. Stock is no slouch as well since they use the famous Nagoya Cochin chicken (think Kobe Beef of chicken) and Shamo from Ibaraki to steep this elegant broth. Tare is a blend of five different shoyu and dried fish to amp the umami sensations of the soup to a max. I thought every component of the soup was perfectly executed and the balance was spot on…really well made in my opinion.

Next up we have the noodles which are sourced from Kokoro no Aji, which seems to provide noodles to a lot of shops in this area. Of course they use a special recipe specific for Suzuharu, but I’m honestly not the biggest fan of the noodles from this producer because it does start to feel very repetitive when I see it at so many shops. I did think it was a great set of noodles to pair with this elegant soup and brought the ramen together nicely, but would wish it was something a bit more unique or eclectic since the soup style is also a trending style that you see at a lot of the upper tier shops. As for toppings my bowl came with a couple slices of chashu, menma bamboo shoots, negi, sprouts, and my Ajitama soft boiled egg. Egg was a tad overcooked for my liking as I tend to enjoy a more runny yolk, but this might be great for someone who prefers a yolk that’s set. Chashu were nicely cooked, but didn’t necessarily wow me and the menma bamboo shoots were just ok. I guess what I’m trying to say is, apart from the soup, nothing else really stood out so it fell in to a bit of a monotonous flavor profile by the end of my meal.

I did however enjoy my chashu over rice bowl which came with some generous chunks of their pork. What i really enjoyed about this is the fact that they actually use pork made specifically for this rice bowl. I don’t think its necessarily a bad thing since it cuts down on food waste, but I do see a lot of shops just repurposing leftover pork chashu for their ramen so it was nice to have a change once in a while like this one. Crispy negi rounds added some much needed crunch and refreshing crispness and I thought it was a very well put together rice bowl overall.

Again, probably wasn’t my favorite bowl of Chicken Shoyu ramen, but I can see why this shop in general is very popular. It seemed like every other person had a different ramen in front of them and each one looked delicious from where I was sitting. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend making a trip out here just for this bowl, but if you’re a ramen fiend, there is a ton of other shops to pair with this one to make the trip worthwhile. If you do end up making a visit, let me know in the comment section below! Would love to hear what others think about the bowl!