Menya Nukaji (麵屋ぬかじ); W Soup in Central Shibuya, Shibuya Station

When I talk about the great stations to visit around Tokyo for good ramen, I very rarely speak of Shibuya. Despite it being one of the most popular stations to explore among tourists, the selection of high quality ramen is rather limited. Due to its high density and young crowd, the ramen scene in Shibuya is filled with chain restaurants and franchises, typically open until the wee hours of the night targeting drunks for a post alcohol binge bowl. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love myself a warm bowl of ramen after a night of drinking, but when I’m sober, you likely wouldn’t see me walking in to one of these shops. However, there are some gems around the area, in places a bit outside the tourist hubs, with Menya Nukaji being one of them. Located about ten minutes from the station, Nukaji is the place to go for some really good, heartwarming bowl of Tonkotsu Gyokai ramen.

As you can see the menu is in English so I won’t bore you with a translation. I ended up getting the regular ramen as they had run out of the extra toppings on my visit, but they did also have some Tsukemen as well as their rendition of a Jiro-kei or Jiro style. On this visit, I went with fellow ramen enthusiast, NamaJapanTV who ended up ordering the Tsukemen. Both looks like great options here and serve the same Tonkotsu Gyokai broth as base so I would go with whichever style you prefer. In the back of the shop is a decent size fridge where you can purchase bottles or cans of Japanese craft brews in cash. If you’re so inclined, I would recommend checking it out and see if anything strikes you. They have a rather large selection so it would be a nice time to check out some local beers to go along with your ramen.

Again, they ran out of extra toppings for the day so I ended up with a bowl of regular ramen. Looks wise, it’s quite simple. A nice ladle full of their Tonkotsu Gyokai W soup, medium thick noodles, menma bamboo shoots, a wrapped pork belly char siu, chopped scallions, and a slice of dried seaweed. Soft boiled egg comes as an extra topping and honestly I would have liked a soft boiled egg to supplement the bowl to give it more substance. Wasn’t a ton of noodles…I’d guess less than 150 grams per bowl. They do have rice with raw egg on the side for free, but NamaJapan and I didn’t see this until after we had finished our bowl so will have to try it out next time.

Soup here is quite fantastic and this is coming from someone who isn’t the biggest fan of the W soup Tonkotsu Gyokai. For those of you who might be unaware of what a W soup is, the W stands for double, as the pronunciation of the letter W in Japanese sounds like the Japanese pronunciation of double. Ramen fanatics consider it a double because the soup actually consists of two different broths; in this case a Tonkotsu broth and a Gyokai broth, which are combined before serving. The biggest difference in my mind between a W soup and one that is steeped together from the start is the consistency. The flavors are vastly different as well, but the consistency is what really defines this style for me. The soup is typically velvety smooth and creamy, a product of the rich tonkotsu broth which get slightly thinned by the Gyokai broth. W soup picked up in popularity about 5-6 years ago and a few top ramen shops in Tokyo feature this style. The most famous for this style is Ramen Gottsu in Nerima, Koukaibou in far east Tokyo, and Ramen Hayashi in nearby Shibuya. To be completely honest, it really doesn’t rank in this tier as they are widely considered to be the best of this particular style, but Nukaji is rather fantastic for its price point, location, and the fact that you don’t need to wait too long in Shibuya.

Much like a lot of shops with this style of soup, noodles are medium thick and straight. It helps to soak up and cling a good amount of the soup with every bite, but not thick enough to overwhelm you with a strong flour aroma and taste. In my mind, this is kinda of the typical noodle you might expect in ramen, but it does have a unique bite to them and the slippery texture makes for a satisfying slurp. The pork char siu is wrapped and Nukaji uses the belly cut which adds some fattiness to the bowl. It is a rather thick slice so it did give it some good substance to the bowl which is desperately needed. I thought it was a well balanced cut with a good ratio of fat and red meat. The flavors weren’t too overwhelming and it took on the soup rather nicely. Menma bamboo shoots, which sadly I forgot to take a photo of, were rather thin, which are pretty unique in my opinion. Had a nice bite to them and I quite enjoyed the texture in it’s rather thin form. The scallions gave the bowl a refreshing crunch and helped cleanse the palette in between bites of the soup. Dried seaweed was a nice mid bowl flavor change giving it some ocean umami. At the table is some curry powder, yuzu powder, and chili powder. I added a bit of the chili powder and yuzu powder, but to be honest, they were underwhelming and the ramen is perfectly good as is.

All in all, Menya Nukaji is a fantastic option for central Shibuya. When you venture outside of the central station of Shibuya, you find a ton of great ramen shops, but Shibuya proper is severely lacking and Nukaji is doing it’s part to elevate the ramen scene. Since the shop isn’t open late night, it’s not a spot you can pop by post drinking, but if you’re looking to grab a meal before you head out for the night, I definitely recommend giving Nukaji a try. You can even pregame with their huge selection of craft brews and is likely to be the start of a great night out. Finally, I actually made a YouTube video of my trip to Nukaji, so if you want to check that out, link is below. I would really appreciate if you subscribed as well!