Menya Sho Minato 翔みなと @ Tokyo

This new-kid-on-the-block sells ramen in rarely seen fish based stock available in three style – shio, shoyu and tsukemen.

Menya Sho has three branches: Nishi-Shinjuku Honten focuses on the deliciousness of chicken; a second store that focuses on the deliciousness of miso; Menya Sho Minato, this store that I went to this evening, focuses on the deliciousness of sea bream.

I love ramen but I only get to eat ramen in Japan when I am alone. And this evening, I was alone (just got off the plane) and wanted something simple. I was surprised that the store was also totally empty.

Special salt ramen with sea bream broth 真鯛の特製塩らーめん

Every time I come to a new store, I would order their most popular or specialty ramen. Special salt ramen with sea bream broth 真鯛の特製塩らーめん came with 4 slices of char siu, menma, green onion, ajitama and a single fishball.  

The stock is the soul of any ramen. Menya Sho Mnato use a lot of carefully selected ingredients, by cooking carefully for a long time, produce a soup that extracts the aroma and taste of tai (sea bream) to the extreme.

The next gauge of a good ramen is the noodles. The good ones have noodles with good bite. The best ones take a step further and keep researching for the right noodles that go well with the soup. The noodles are specially made for Menya Sha by Sugano Noodles 菅野製麺所 with a unique blend of several types of domestic wheat, paying close attention to the aroma, texture and firmness of wheat noodles.

Two types of meat – chicken and pork – are used for their char siu チャーシュー .
Excess fats are removed and the meats are aged, something rare among ramen char siu, the grilled chicken thigh 鶏もも and pork belly 豚バラ are full of umami and a slight smoked aroma. Fresh chicken breast 鶏胸肉 and pork shoulder loin 豚肩ロ are marinated in salted koji and sous vide to produce the softest and moist char siu チャーシュー possible.

The specialty of this store is sea bream. And the ramen came with a single fishball. It was not something that we are used to in Singapore, the fishball has very little added flour and quite fishy. It tasted more like the steamed carp fishball 鯪魚球 in Cantonese dim sum.

They do not have the traditional gyozas, so I ordered the boiled dumplings 水餃子, which are rather mediocre wontons. You might as well give it a miss.

Menya Sho Minato 麺屋翔みなと-新宿野村ビル店-
東京都新宿区西新宿1-26-2
Tel : 03-6304-5242

Visited Jan 2025