In Japan, Kazuo Yamagishi is a man who was known as “The God of Ramen” and also the man responsible for creating tsukemen, a ramen dish in which noodles are eaten after being dipped in a separate bowl of soup or broth.
Getting the idea when he worked for a ramen restaurant in Tokyo’s Nakano, he got the idea after seeing a colleague eating noodles after dipping them in a cup of soup.
Yamagishi added the popular dish to his cousin Sakaguchi Masayasu’s restaurant, Taishoken with the name “special morisoba” and sold it for 40 yen. So popular, the dish would become featured at Taishoken restaurants and more than 100 chefs that worked for Yamagishi would open their own Taishoken branch restaurants across the country.
While Yamagishi passed away in 2015, his ramen served with quality pork stock and chicken stock with a soy sauce broth and a taste that people love continues to be sold at Taishoken restaurants.
With it being winter at the time (tsukemen is typically eaten in the summer), I decided to go to the Taishoken Minami-Ikebukuro-Shop for the ramen and the gyoza. A restaurant which was started by one of Yamagishi’s apprentice.
While Ramen Jiro (which is next door) has the big lines, Taishoken was still quite packed and perfect for those who don’t want to wait 30 min. to an hour.
The original Higashi-Ikebukuro Taishoken restaurant opened back in 1961 (Showa 36) was closed due to redevelopment at Higashi-Ikebukuro in 2007 but the next restaurant was opened near the original restaurant’s location.
The newer restaurant is now ran by Yamagishi’s first student, Iino Toshihiko, the successor who was selected by Yamagishi before going into retirement.
It’s important to note that while there are many chefs that worked under Yamagishi, the Taishoken chef’s had to battle it out to see who would be the successor of the Taishoken name and Iino was the winner.
I will do a review for the Higashi-Ikebukuro Taishoken restaurant soon but for this blog, I will review the Minami-Ikebukuro restaurant first which Iino managed originally.
Like most ramen shops, you pay at the machine and get your ticket. You bring your ticket to the chef (and you put it up on the counter where you will be sitting, so the chef knows what you have).
Please bare in mind, that these ramen shops are not for hanging out and talking with friends. These are places where people go to eat ramen and then leave. I did see parents bring children, but their parents were telling their kids to eat.
I first ate my gyoza, which was immediately devoured and was quite tasty. But this was just the appetizer to prepare me for the ramen, which I was looking forward to.
The ramen had green onion, bamboo shoots (menma), boiled egg, fish cake and a slice of chashu (pork).
The broth of the ramen was amazing with a great combination of soy sauce and sweet vinegar. If anything, Taishoken’s stock is well-known for using pork bones, chicken bones, pig’s feet for collage to thicken, dried sardines and mackerel in a burlap bag and simmered into the pot.
But the ramen was flavorful and the noodles were fresh. These noodles are homemade and made every morning. The menma is seasoned with a special sauce and takes 3 to 4 days to complete.
But part of the challenging thing about Taishoken is that not one store can someone say it tastes the same.
There are people who are very sensitive and critical, for example, while Yamagishi chose Iino-san as his successor, others may feel his other disciple stores are better. So, it’s a bit subjective.
But nevertheless, from the ramen that I had, I absolutely loved it! And now, I’ll have to try the tsukemen, when I next visit the Higashi-Ikebukuro location in the near future.
If you have a chance to go to Japan and are a ramen/tsukemen fanatic, definitely give a Taishoken ramen restaurant a try!
UPDATE: More on Yamagishi Kazuo and Taishoken here!!!
