My short piece on the Nishi-Azabu branch of Gogyo ran in the Japan Times today. Here are a few more images to add to the few paragraphs that the JT rations me to these days…
It's not just the ramen that sets Gogyo apart. Very few ramenya offer this kind of izkaya menu and ambiance. It's spacious and pretty comfortable. And it has a pretty good selection of sake and shochu, including the very potable, potent Samurai-no-mon ("Samurai Gate") imo (sweet potato) shochu from Kagoshima...
It has a menu of simple snacks, such as tebasaki (chicken wings); yaki-gyoza potstickers; dashimaki-tamago omelette; that modern izakaya standard, potato salad; and Goma-Q, cucumbers with a sesame dressing. There's usually a seasonal side menu of nibbles too, such as these cream cheese cubes marinated in shoyu, which you wrap in toasted nori…
But at the end of the day – and I mean this literally, as Gogyo stays open till the wee hours – it is the noodles that you're there for. Especially the kogashi "burned" ramen. Of the two choices, miso or shoyu, I find the flavor of the miso works a lot better...
But the shoyu version is quite acceptable. Though you may not want to lap up quite so much of the oily broth as I did here...
And apologies, even if Gogyo had better light inside, the kogashi ramen is not really photogenic.
