Friday, March 29, 2019

Arigato and sayonara Machida Shoten

Machida Shoten, tsukemen

Japan Food Town seems to have lost quite a bit of it's allure. There used to be much more than twice the crowd back in earlier times even in the weekdays. Tenants have changed and shop units haves been left vacant. The menu of some of the still surviving restaurants have changed and not necessarily for the better.

If the food at Machida Shoten was of any indication of things, that decline could certainly be understood. While I wouldn't miss the spicy shrimp chahan, I certainly did the mentaiko butter rice and those shrimp gyozas that were pretty good. All of them no longer in their current menu.

There was a limited time tsukemen. Ingredients were not bad. The charshu was tasty but kinda tiny. The dipping broth was also nice in a tangy, spicy and bonito-y sort of way. But it wasn't viscous so it didn't cling well to the noodles. It also wasn't served very hot. Before half the noodles were done, it had become almost room temperature. I went through rest of the chilled noodles pretty much cold all the way to the end. Pity. 

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