麺屋はなび (Delivery Hanabi Mazesoba in Shinjuku, Tokyo)

0 Reviews

麺屋はなび新宿店

While delivery ramen was popular in America well before 2020, it wasn’t until the global pandemic forced us to stay at home that Japan started offering noodles at your doorstep. It’s still mostly considered unacceptable to send hot soup out the door, but soupless mazesoba can withstand the tests of time. Or can it?

This was the first time I tried ordering ramen on Uber Eats. At a total of $20, this is more than double what you would pay in the shop. I did this live on Twitch, so I guess the $0.08 I made from ad revenue helped offset it.

Looks fine. Menya Hanabi is the shop that invented Taiwan Mazesoba in Nagoya. Spicy ground pork, nira garlic chives, pork chashu, raw garlic, and an egg all get mixed up and slurped up. The head shop in Nagoya was well worth the two-hour wait. Five out of five. The delivery stuff from their Shinjuku branch sits around two.

The 30-minute wait for Uber . . . I dunno. It was fine. The noodles held up for the most part and the spices were on point. I know that ramen is global now, and people get it to go or have it delivered all the time. You do you. There are a few shops that deliver ramen in soup out here as well, but they are mostly generic chains as far as I can tell. They do it for profit, not because they take pride in their soup.

But hey, if you’re stuck in a hotel room doing some kind of mandatory quarantine, this just might be your ticket to flavor town.

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