Ueno in Tokyo is like Chinatown in NYC, everything is sold at suspiciously low prices. You can buy everything there from selvage jeans, sneakers, Rolexes, Audigiers, to blocks of fresh tuna and candy. Whenever the misses goes home I make sure she grabs me some ramen because it costs like $3-4 in Ueno, whereas the train stations and airports normally charge like 10.

Today’s ramen is a shio (salt) ramen called Zenya from Saitama. A review of the actual restaurant can be found on World Ramen.

On the box:
The owner/chef of Zenya looking all serious, in a clean chef’s uniform with face that screams, “If you don’t like my ramen, die!” This is one of the few boxes of ramen I’ve seen where the chef does not have his arms crossed. Obviously this guy is hiding 2nd and 3rd degree burns on his arms.

Inside the box:
- Fresh thick noodles
- Soup base made from Lard, Chicken, Scallop, Pork, Niboshi, Konbu, Salt, and Katsuo

Preparation is simple just boil noodles for 1-2 minutes. Drain. Mix soup base with 280ml. of water.

I added home made chashu, spinach, scallions and sesame seeds.

Verdict:
Good soup, not too heavy, strong chicken and seafood taste. I found the noodles a bit too thick and tasted more like thick spaghetti than regular ramen noodles, although they did not ever get soggy. I think the broth would have been much better with curlier thinner noodles.

3.5 stars out of 5.