Small Axe / スモールアックス - Oimachi
Small Axe (スモールアックス) is a tiny ramen shop in the drinking alley right next to Oimachi station, serving Jiro style tonkotsu ramen with thick noodles and a rich shoyu seasoning.
The front of the ramen shop Small Axe in Oimachi.
Walking into the shop, you immediately see the vending machine to your left, which doesn’t give you a ton of options. Ramen comes in one size, which is a very generous portion already in terms of noodles, so don’t worry that you will leave hungry. Additional paid toppings are extra meat, boiled or raw eggs and gyofun fish powder. There’s also Indonesian Bintang beer on the menu, which is a rare find in Japan. After getting all the desired tickets from the machine, you put them down on the counter at one of the 6 available seats. Yea, the Small Axe is really this small! Once you sit down, you will find ladles, chopsticks, additional seasoning tare, as well as black and white pepper just above your head in a small shelf. When you get your bowl, you have a chance to get additional toppings or modify your bowl. Free toppings include garlic, more veggies and pork back fat. You can also order more tare, but there’s some signs around the shop discouraging that, since the tare is quite strong and you can add it yourself from the counter, if you really want.
Low emulsification Jiro style tonkotsu ramen soup with lots of seabura pork back fat.
The bowl itself is a hefty bowl of tonkotsu, without a lot of emulsification. So don’t expect something like the white and creamy Hakata style tonkotsu. After the ramen master adds 80ml of his rich and salty soy sauce based tare, he makes pork back fat rain over the bowls, which he freshly pulls out of the huge broth pot. The finished soup has a very crisp and sharp flavor. Salty, slightly sweet and enough msg to make your taste buds tingle. The type of soup that makes you crave for just one more spoonful until you are near the end of the bowl.
Medium thickness Jiro style noodles - quite thick in general though!
The noodles are medium thick for Jiro style noodles and of course quite fat when compared to most other styles of ramen. You get 250 grams of noodles pre-boil, which is really enough to fill almost all stomachs out there sufficiently, without inducing the famous Jiro food coma. The amount is comparable to what you get at Meguro Jiro. Reading some reviews on Ramen Database, the owner outright refuses to add more noodles to any bowl.
Falling apart chashu slices - get an extra order at the vending machine. Very good, but not enough.
Two slices of chashu get added when no additional pork is ordered. I feel like an additional chashu order is a good recommendation, so get that for 200 Yen from the machine.
Be aware that the owner of Small Axe values the silence of his customers. So beyond saying what you want in your bowl and saying “gochisosama” after your meal, maybe keep conversations outside or at least to a minimum. Oimachi itself is also a great area to go out before or after your meal at Small Axe. Lots of good restaurants, bars and other ramen shops are all around Oimachi station.
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