Chukasoba Mitaka / 中華そば みたか - Mitaka
Chukasoba Mitaka (中華そば みたか) looks back to an over 70 year old history of ramen making at its current spot. Opened in 1949 as Chukasoba Eguchi, the shop was handed into the second generation, which changed the name, but kept essentially everything else the same.
Chukasoba Mitaka is in the basement of this building that has seen better days.
To find the shop itself, you need to move down into the basement passage of this building, which is home some other restaurants and coffee shops as well.
I was accompanied on this ramen adventure by Cody aka Ramenguidejapan, whose ramen reviews you can find at: Ramenguidejapan.com
This shop could not look more classic and nostalgic, even if it tried.
The nostalgia seeps out of everything in this shop. From the shop itself, the interior, the cooking methods and the final ramen itself, everything reminds you of a time that has long gone. But here, it is kept alive.
Wantan Chashumen for just 900 Yen - a total steal for what you get. And beautiful on top!
First of all, the ramen here is an absolute steal. 600 Yen for a basic bowl, which currently isn’t even $5 USD. The version with extra wantan and chashu clocks in at 900 Yen. Go with that one, you won’t regret it.
The ramen here has all kind of interesting features, even though it looks like a regular old school chukasoba style shoyu ramen bowl. The bowl is seemingly put together in a haphazard way, using renge style ramen spoons to ladle out 1 spoonful of shoyu tare and 2 spoonfuls of aroma oil, which are mixed with a GOOD helping of msg and a clear broth. The result is a quite punching soup that is hard to stop slurping down to the end.
The copious amounts of fat droplets give you an idea of the richness of the soup.
The soup is combined with interestingly thick noodles, more akin to what you would find in something like tonkotsu-gyokai tsukemen.
The broth base is made with chicken and pork bones, combined with a large amount of onions, niboshi, negi, kombu and cabbage.
Unusually thick noodles for this style of chukasoba makes for a unique slurping experience.
The noodles, just as everything else, is boiled in the same pot of boiling water that doesn’t seem to get changed at all. My further investigation of this ramen shop also points towards them not changing the water. One point to enable this looks to be that the noodles are basically not dusted with flour.
The noodles are removed quite early and placed into the hot soup, only then the wantan get boiled. For a moment I was worried that I would get soft noodles, but the thickness helped them stay basically al dente when they arrived in front of me. The wantan are the small filling type with quite large dough flaps which provide a welcome texture change to the thick noodles.
Square cut pork belly, deep fried and seasoned with a soy sauce based seasoning.
The chashu is quite classic pork, with a distinct but light aroma. It is prepared in a bit of an unique way. The pork belly cuts are first deep friend in lard and then afterwards steeped in a strong soy sauce based seasoning. At the end, it gets cut into the square shape which you will find on top of your ramen bowls.
Honestly, this is the kind of bowl of ramen I could eat every other day. Luckily this shop isn’t anywhere near where I live, because I probably would show up 1-2 per week in addition to my regular ramen exploits.
If you make it here, I can recommend checking out the coffee shop “Lisbon” next door, which is a super old school coffee shop with ridiculously cheap coffee and sandwiches, but made with quality ingredients and experience. Hard to beat in combination with Chukasoba Mitaka. Go try the combo.
More information about Chukasoba Mitaka (中華そば みたか):
Official Instagram account of Chukasoba Mitaka "@chukasoba_mitaka
Hour long look behind the scenes, showing the cooking methods at Chukasoba Mitaka in this video by Moku Meshi - highly recommended watch!
Ramen Walker visited Chukasoba Mitaka in this review video
