麺や一途 (Menya Ichizu in Shinagawa, Tokyo)

0 Reviews

麺や一途

Sometimes ramen is presented in a unique and maybe even confusing way. Generally, these bowls are not for me. Menya Ichizu’s aroma (香) bowl of creamy curry ramen made with fond de veau stock looked like something well out of my alley. Quite the opposite.

Veal bones from New Zealand are boiled with chicken feet and aromatic vegetables for the base soup at Ichizu. Depending on your order, this soup is flavored with different miso blends, Shimousa soy sauce (下総醤油), French Guerande salt, and fresh cream.

With such a daunting menu, I went with the “Highly recommend Ramen” on page one. Curry-spiced fond de veau topped with a poached egg and chunks of sous vide chicken breast. A very fun bowl that I can recommend to anyone looking for something unique in the ramen world.

The menu is fairly large, and the whole thing is complicated by the odd naming of the dishes. I had the kaori (香 – aroma). Eri (衣利 – clothes) is their thick miso ramen. Taku (卓 – table) is straight veal soup. Yoji (洋史 – Western history) is a miso tsukemen. I really have no idea.

It’s worth noting that they offer a full-course French menu in their private dining room. It costs between 5000 and 10,000 yen. Chef Nakata (仲田一途) has a background in French cooking, working at prestigious restaurants and high-end wedding halls in Japan. His concept behind Ichizu was fairly straightforward: he knows how to make some nice soup. Using French techniques for fond de veau instead of pork seemed to work, and his shop has been making it since 2013. Even though veal bones are three times the cost of pork bones in Japan, the chef takes pride in his unique style of ramen.

Official site here.

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