Special morning-only ramen is a great way to start your Tokyo day.
They say that you should never put off until tomorrow that which you can do today, and by that same logic, you should never put off until lunch or dinner that which you can eat for breakfast. However, with many ramen restaurants not opening until around noon, starting your day the ramen way isn’t always an option, but we recently stumbled across a fantastic spot for morning ramen with an extremely convenient location for travelers in Tokyo.
We start our morning at Tokyo Station, one of Japan’s busiest rail hubs, with over 800,000 people passing through it every day. From there we head out the Marunouchi Minamiguchi exit, walking south along the elevated tracks towards the Yurakucho neighborhood.
We don’t walk very far, though, because it’s just a very quick stroll to the ramen restaurant pictured above, Magorinsha (孫鈴舎).
▼ The walk from Tokyo Station to Magorinsha. Google says it takes four minutes, but once we were out of the ticket gates, we actually made it there in two.
Magorinsha isn’t a 24-hour ramen restaurant, but they open at 7 a.m., specifically so they can provide for fans who want ramen for breakfast. They even offer a special Morning Ramen (“Asa Raman” in Japanese) which is only available on weekdays between 7 and 10:30 a.m., so that’s what we ordered after putting our 600 yen (US$3.90) into the meal ticket machine.
Soon after that, the staff placed a bowl of very classy-looking ramen in front of us.
This isn’t some half-effort, can’t-be-bothered morning meal, as it boasts a complex cloudy broth that’s a combination tonkotsu (pork stock)/shoyu (soy sauce)/gyokai (fish stock) style. It delivers a solidly impactful flavor, and Magorinsha’s decision to serve it with grated ginger already mixed in, a unique choice for a ramen restaurant in Japan, also gives it a special eye-opening quality for a breakfast ramen.
Magorinsha’s noodles are thin and firm, which gave us a lot of surface area for the broth to soak into. It’s an excellent combination, and if you want even more noodles, you can ask for a kaedama (noodle refill) for just 100 yen more.
And even at the Morning Ramen’s affordable price point, Magorinsha doesn’t skip out on the chashu, as we had a nice slice of roasted pork waiting for us in the bowl.
Considering the ultra-convenient location in a pretty fancy part of town, this is a very impressive breakfast. With many hotels nearby, Magorinsha’s morning ramen is a great spot to hit at the start of your sightseeing day, and the proximity to Tokyo Station, where both the Shinkansen and highway buses come in, makes it a viable choice on the day of your arrival in Tokyo from elsewhere in Japan too.
Restaurant information
Magorinsha / 孫鈴舎
Address: Tokyo-to, Chiyoda-ku, Marunouchi 1-10-9
東京都千代田区丸の内1-10-9
Open 7 a.m.-10 p.m. (weekdays), 11 a.m.-3 p.m. (Saturdays)
Closed Sundays, holidays
Website
Photos ©SoraNews24
● Want to hear about SoraNews24’s latest articles as soon as they’re published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!
[ Read in Japanese ]