やすべえ

(From the Waseda exit, go right, and right again on the large road. It’s just past the building covered in crazy chains, which incidentally is a school for the blind)

After a lengthy detour down some back alleys of Takadanobaba, there was Yasube. And there was the line of 18 people. If you are a ramen nut, and have the time, this usually isn’t a problem. Someone once calculated that it was 4 or 5 minutes per person in line. But this is a tsukemen shop, and things are different.

As you can see from the sign above, all the sizes are 720 yen. This is one of the selling points of tsukemen. Most shops offer any size you want for the same price. So it’s essentially an all-you-can-eat noodle buffet! Just don’t order the big one and only eat half. I’ve never seen someone order a 440 grams of wet noodles and then leave it. I can only imagine the shame.

A line of 18 people, and I sat down after only about 15 minutes. How is that possible? Well, tsukemen arrives cold, and cold goes down much faster than piping hot, oil covered ramen.

Today I ordered the spicy tsukemen.