凪ゴールデン街
(somewhere in Golden Gai)

My almost weekly trip to the Shibuya Nagi is always met with a cold beer and a hot bowl of noodles, and also an invitation to their newest shop in Shinjuku. Deep in the heart of Golden Gai, a place which must be seen, is this little ramen shop. Golden Gai will be in your travel books, or easily pointed out by a local host. Hunrdeds of small drinking establishments, most only holding 4 or 5 people at a time line the dark alleys.

There’s also a ramen shop holding about 5 cozy people.

On a tuesday night at 7:30 there were a few people in there, but I was able to squeeze into a seat.

The special here is the long flat noodles, which are then cut by hand into thin ones.

The standard bowl also comes with a couple uncut noodles thrown in for fun.

One thing about Nagi, with it’s 3 locations in Tachikawa, Shibuya, and Shinjuku is that each one has a very different taste. At the Golden Gai shop, a lot of fish goes into making the thick soup. Also a good amount of green onions. So expect a strong taste.

The owner is a cool guy named Ikuda. Very welcoming, he was overjoyed that I had come from the Shibuya shop and that I was somewhat of a ramen maniac. But, unfortunately, he speaks crazy fast, so I only understood a third of what he said!