Men Urata / 麺うらた - Jiyugaoka

*Front of ramen shop Men Urata in Jiyugaoka*

Men Urata (麺うらた) is a yuzu shio ramen specialty shop in Jiyugaoka, Tokyo. Jiyugaoka is one of the more trendy neighborhoods in Tokyo, having gained lots of popularity in the last 10 years, being almost in the middle between central Tokyo and Yokohama.

The shop itself is very nice and clean inside, almost resembles a sushi restaurant with nice wooden counters. They definitely went for a more upscale vibe for their ramen shop and it definitely works together with their elegant shio ramen.

*Full menu of Men Urata on their ticket vending machine.*

The Menu of Men Urata focuses on shio ramen, with various topping options. The main choice to make is if you want a copious amount of yuzu peel on your bowl or not. My personal recommendation is to go for it, as it really adds a lot of flavor and extravagance to the bowl.

The second row includes kujonegi gyoza, white rice, tai meshi, torotama chashu rice and iberico pork chashu rice. Pretty premium side dishes, if you compare to many other shops, which opt for more simple sides.

*Yuzu Shio Soba Tamago Iri (ゆず塩SOBA玉子入り) at Men Urata.*

I went for the Yuzu Shio Soba Tamago Iri (ゆず塩SOBA玉子入り), which displays the strong points of Men Urata. The first things that jump into everyone's eye is surely the heap of yuzu peel which is sitting on top of finely cut negi green onion and micro greens. My first impression was that it might be too much and overpowering, but I found that it actually works quite well with their powerful shio soup.

The next thing to note is the black garlic, which sits on top of the chashu. I recommend keeping track of it, and take small bites from it between some slurps to switch things up every once in a while. It had a quite mellow flavor for me, not as pungent as some other black garlic I had in the past.

The chashu is a wonderful piece of sous vide pork, which has the typical almost rare looking pinkish hue. It was very tender without falling apart and super juicy, as to be expected from sous vide prepared pork.

The soup at Men Urata, I asked, is chicken, veggies and various fish elements. The guy running the show didn’t want to mention all, but said “tai, katsuobushi and so on”. I think the tai (sea bream) and katsuobushi are easy to notice, especially if you know that they are in the soup.

Compared to some other ramen shops which go hard into the “chicken, water and salt” direction of simplicity, the soup at Men Urata is way more complex and has a lot going on, especially with the addition of the yuzu.

You also see quite a lot of chiyu chicken fat on top of the soup, which amps up the richness and chicken flavor of the bowl.

The noodles are wonderful thin, low-hydration noodles, which fit perfectly to this bowl of shio ramen soup.

For comparison I went a second time and got their tokusei bowl, which also includes wantan and extra pork belly chashu.

And if you are curious about the egg, it is definitely a bit more on the runny side.

If you are looking for great bowls of shio ramen and you like yuzu, then Men Urata should be on your to-do list. The shop itself is super easily accessible via the Toyoko Line from Shibuya. It is located a short 2 minute walk from Jiyugaoka station.