Chukasoba Kingyo / 中華蕎麦金魚 - Kita-Urawa

Chukasoba Kingyo (中華蕎麦金魚) is a tsukemen style ramen shop next to Kita-Urawa station in the South of Saitama prefecture. Kingyo (金魚) translates into gold fish, which is not what you are getting served here, but it indicates that you can expect some tsukemen and ramen with fish notes at this ramen shop.

*Vending machine at Chukasoba Kingyo in Urawa.*

The ramen served at Kingyo is in the classic style, not too dissimilar to the famous Taishoken ramen shops in Eifukucho and Higashi-Ikebukuro and their style of ramen and tsukemen, maybe in a slightly more modern rendition. Looking at online reviews, it seems like people go a bit more for their tsukemen rather than their ramen, maybe in a 60:40 split. In accordance to this, I went for their tsukemen as well for my first visit.

*Tsukemen noodles dipped in soup at Kingyo.*

The soup is a classic pork broth with distinct niboshi dried fish notes, which result in a slightly sweet and acidic soup with smoky notes, but not an overly strong fish aroma. For my taste, I like this style a bit more sour, but luckily there is vinegar on the counter, so this can be fixed individually. The noodles are really good and fit well to the dipping soup. They are more firm compared to the Taishoken originals.

*Not properly cut negi at Kingyo, unfortunately not a very good sign.*

On the topping side, the wantan and the flame grilled pieces of pork and negi were quite nice, but nothing special. Unfortunately there were quite a few pieces of very sloppily chopped negi green onion, which made me question the level of care that goes into the prep at this shop. The egg could have been executed a bit better as well, although it was nothing to really complain about. Overall, Kingyo is probably one of the better ramen shops in the area around Kita-Urawa station and a perfectly fine spot to get a classic Taishoken style ramen or tsukemen fix