らーめん紬麦

What happened to Akihabara? A veritable wasteland for ramen in the past, suddenly it seems like every shop I hit there is a winner. The otaku, with their voracious appetite for cute girls in high school uniforms (2-D of course), as well as an equal appetite for grease and carbs . . . could they be developing a taste for variety?

Finding Tsumugi was tough. Be sure to go out the Showa-dori exit (昭和通り口) and you will be headed in the right direction. Akihabara is shiny and confusing. I spent a few minutes on the wrong side, until a nice girl in a maid outfit pointed me in the right direction.

The shop is in a basement of a bank building, by the way.

Tsumugi’s best point are the noodles.

さぬきの夢, the dream of Sanuki, can be seen throughout the shop. Turns out that those excellent noodles are 100% Sanuki flour.

Sanuki, referring to the old name of Kagawa Prefecture, is home to some of the best wheat in Japan. The relatively mild climate along the Seto inland sea is ideal for the production, and the local cuisine reflects this. Of course, 99.9% of Sanuki flour goes into making Sanuki udon.

If you have never had really good udon from Shikoku, you are missing out.

The rest of the bowl works for me. You have 3 choices, the shoyu, the shio, and the tsumugi. The tsumugi is a bit on the sweet and spicy side. Sweet from the abundance of sliced spring onion, and spicy from the addition of both spicy rayu and flavorful sesame oil. Needless to say, there are a lot of flavors for the noodles to grab on to.