Nishi Chukasoba / 西中華そば店 - Aomori
Classic chukasoba at Nishi Chukasoba in Aomori city. Super impactful and almost harsh bowl of niboshi ramen. As soon as the bowl is in front of you, the smell of dried sardine niboshi fills your nostrils. The soup is sweet and lightly bitter, full of niboshi flavor.
The soup is paired with very thick noodles, which seem to be an Aomori thing. All noodles made in-house with a noodle machine which is just behind the counter.
The chashu is on the classic side, lightly chewy, which works great with the thick and soft noodles. The menma are very dark and juicy, must have been marinated in dark soy sauce for quite a long time to get to this color.
Nishi is a real local hero, especially due to being super affordable. The bowl you are seeing in the picture above is only 550 Yen, roughly 5 US dollars. With this fantastic value, Nishi was often recommended to me by locals. A recommendation I can easily extend. Probably would get extra menma next time, they were excellent.
You can check out some more footage and some more Aomori ramen in the Aomori Ramen Tour video.
