Karaage no Tensai invokes the name of Jiro-style ramen, and we head out for a taste test.

It’s been said that there’s a fine line between genius and madness, but might that line be deep-fried and covered in cheese? It was the search for the answer to that question that recently led us to downtown Tokyo’s Uguisudani neighborhood.

We were here to visit the local branch of Karaage no Tensai, a restaurant chain whose name translates as “Genius of Fried Chicken.” Part of the Watami restaurant group (most famous for the Watami chain of pubs), Karaage no Tensai opened its first branch in 2018, so it was poised to reap the benefits of the boom in popularity for karaage/Japanese-style fried chicken that took place during the pandemic, when people across the country were looking for hearty comfort food that was takeout-friendly. By the middle of 2021, Karaage no Tensai boasted 100 branches, but these days the chain has dwindled back down to just six locations.

It’s kind of a shame, as Karaage no Tensai’s fried chicken (pictured above) is perfectly tasty stuff. Still, it’s hard to stand out when there’s so much competition in the karaage sphere, which is perhaps what led the Uguisudani branch to take the bold move of offering heavyweight ramen-style cheese karaage rice bowls.

Exclusive to the Uguisudani branch, Karaage no Tensai calls this creation the Jiro-kei Cheese Karaage-don, brazenly invoking the name of the style of ramen popularized by the Ramen Jiro chain, which has no connection to Karaage no Tensai or the Watami group. Jiro-style ramen, for those who haven’t tried it, is characterized by an extra salty and oily broth, copious amounts of garlic, and lots of bean sprouts.

▼ Ramen Jiro ramen

So how does Karaage no Tensai translate this into fried chicken form? Like this.

Visually, the 1,408-yen (US$8.85) Jiro-kei Cheese Karaage-don definitely makes an impact, with such a large quantity of toppings that they look like they’re about to overflow from the bowl and a surprisingly vivid cheese sauce squirted all across the top.

Starting from the bottom, the bowl is filled with rice, bean sprouts, six nicely sized pieces of karaage, cloves of roasted garlic, and cheese.

The cheese here is kind on an outlier, since it’s not an ingredient you’ll find in Jiro-style ramen. As our taste-testing reporter P.K. Sanjun took a bite, though, the reason for its inclusion became clear. The cheese sauce is strongly salty, and combined with its creaminess, seems to be Karaage no Tensai’s intended facsimile for Jiro-style ramen’s salty, oily broth.

However, the saltiness found in the cheese sauce isn’t present in the other ingredients in the Jiro-kei Cheese Karaage-don, and while the roasted garlic obviously tastes garlicky, P.K. couldn’t detect all that much seasoning to the bean sprouts of fried chicken. As such, salty cheese was the dominant flavor from start to finish, and the taste started to get a little repetitive part-way through the meal, prompting P.K. to munch on a mouthful of bean sprouts from time to time when he found himself wanting a palate cleanser or just a little variety.

All that said, the Jiro-kei Cheese Karaage-don wasn’t a bad meal. It may not actually scratch the Jiro-style ramen itch because of how different the fried chicken bowl ends up being, but it’s still a filling guilty pleasure of a rice bowl, even if it doesn’t really fulfil the promise in its name.

Restaurant information
Karaage no Tensai (Usguisudani branch) / から揚げの天才 うぐいす谷店
Address: Tokyo-to, Taito-ku, Usuisudani 1-1-24
東京都台東区根岸1-1-24
Open 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m., 3:30 p.m.-10 p.m. (weekdays), 11 a.m.-10 p.m. (weekends)
Website

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