Day in the Life of a Hungry Food Explorer: Tender Soft Pork Bone Noodle Soup

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Tender Soft Pork Bone Noodle Soup

I had a local friend in Japan bring us to one of his favorite places for soft pork bone noodle soup. Unfortunately in Japan, there's not much English in their restaurant signs so the best way is to get the map coordinates and share the store front! Like many small food shops in Japan, the Japanese are known to wanting to keep to themselves and minding their own business with as little interaction with someone as possible. Although it's not very obvious in this case, I'll be posting about a particular Ramen spot which fully describes that mentality. To order food at this place you just need to look at the menu from outside and head towards a vending machine and select that food item and pay cash upfront. It's quite an interesting way of running a restaurant. So basically there's no concept of waiters/waitresses here as the vending machine takes their place. Once you have paid for your order on the vending machine, it will spit out a ticket for you which you then go inside the restaurant and give it directly to the chefs. This was a bar like style so you just sit in front of the chefs and they will directly give you your food onceit's done. Very similar to how most Sushi bars function these days.

Being constantly told that food in Japan can get really expensive, this was actually not bad in price. For 400 YEN or $4 USD dollars, you get a nice bowl of soft pork bone noodle soup. The meat was so tender and full of flavor. It was sweet soy sauce based I think and there wasn't really much of a bone but more of a cartilage that is edible. Noodles were cooked perfectly as well. Almost leaning towards the texture of a tendon but slightly more bouncy. This restaurant is pretty budget friendly as the range goes from 400 YEN to about 950 YEN ($4 to $9.50 USD dollars). I only tried the soft pork bone noodle soup (cost 880 YEN or $8.80 USD dollars) but you could also just order the soft pork bone only as well. This was the recommendation by my local friend who says this place serves one of the best in town. I definitely would recommend giving this place a try as well. Without hesitation, worth another visit! I think the below information should be accurate; if not rely on Google Maps coordinates and look for the orange store front!

Name: 沖縄食堂
Phone: +81 3-3353-2028
Address: 新宿3-22-1, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, Japan 160-0022
Google Maps: Click Here!