Tsuta — Restaurant in Tokyo

I am thrilled to say that I finally got to visit Tsuta in Tokyo, the first michelin starred ramen restaurant in the world.

Let me start off with my order "Chashu Wonton Ajitama Shoyu Soba" This black truffle ramen comes with savory seasoned egg, black truffle oil, fermented crunchy bamboo shoots, chashu and handmade wontons. These braised Iberian pork chashu were absolute killer. Flavorful, tender, and melts in my mouth. Pork wontons were perfectly boiled and quite tasty along with ramen but nothing to write home about.

The noodles are handmade with different kinds of wheat flour. Hard to describe the texture but I would describe it as a cross between soba and ramen. Thin but still have a bite to it almost like al dente noodles.

The broth made with mixed seafood and chicken stock including specialized soy sauce and other goods. The truffle flavor in the broth was subtle enough to balance with the soy sauce flavor. It's light, delicate, flavorful and not too salty, I finish every last drop of the soup without getting thirsty for a gallon of water afterward.

1700¥ for the Chashu Wonton Ajitama Shoyu Soba. Arguably expensive for ramen in Japan. For me, that's the standard price for ramen back where I live in the States. But here at Tsuta, it's an incredible price for what you get. The most exceptional premium ramen I ever had in my life.

I also got TKG (aka raw egg on rice) as a side dish as well. Their TKG is more luxury compare to other places though. Not only raw egg served on top of fluffy rice but black truffle powder as well. Just mix everything together and eat, it's creamy and tasty. If you ever wanted to try the freshest raw egg on rice for once in your life, it's a perfect time to try while you are in Japan, trust me!

Lastly, I want to talk about the major problem of Tsuta. Personally, it's not that serious for me but I just want to let it out lol. Tsuta's main problem gotta be their convoluted reservation ticket system, absolutely a pain in the butt especially for non-locals.

For people who want to eat here during early afternoon hours, you have to visit the shop as early as 7am to reserve time slot availability ticket which also require 1000¥ deposit then you will get that money back when you return to the shop at a designated time. All the tickets are color coded. 11am (White), 12pm (Light Blue), 1pm (Blue), 2pm (Pink), 3pm (Green) and 6pm (Yellow).

In my case, I arrived at the shop at 9am for a reservation slot, and I got a blue ticket (1pm). I went back to my hotel then came back to the shop 10 minutes before 1pm, I still had to wait in line along with other ticket holder people for another hour and a half before the staff let me inside the shop to order. AND then back to the line for another 10 minutes before I finally getting my seat at the counter. Trust me, I'm very patient at waiting long hours in lines especially for restaurants and concerts. But wow, what an ordeal that was..

By far the most complicated ramen shop to get in. But of course, it's worth it once you get...

At ¥2000 for the basic shoyu bowl, this was the most expensive ramen I've ever had. Apart from Nakiryu, this was also the most 'elite' ramen I've ever had. I will judge it accordingly. I was very disappointed with this bowl. I had it on my 'want to go' list for a very long time because of the hype, and I'm sad to say that it is definitely not Michelin star worthy and likely turning into a tourist trap.

The first thing that made me suspicious was the sign over the restaurant that said "Japanese Soba Noodles" in English. It might as well have said "Tourists welcome!". Maybe it was the time of day that I went, but about 90% of the patrons were foreigners. I also wondered if the prices were inflated to exploit the favorable exchange rate for tourists.

The wait outside was roughly an hour. I've seen other users on here complain about the reservation system, but I found no problem with it. Apparently the word 'reservation' has an esoteric meaning to google reviewers. I did, however, find issue with the group of 10 people in front of me getting the last servings of the seasonal special hot sour wagyu noodles. This isn't the first day the bowl was offered, so I have to believe Tsuta has recorded sales numbers. I thought it was an amateur mistake to run out of the seasonal specialty bowl 3 hours before closing time.

I believe the waiters were in training, so I won't factor them into the overall star rating. However it is worth noting for the current staff that I was seated directly next to a table that had yet to be cleaned, and waited quite a while to get a glass of water. I did see them do a good job of explaining a dish in English.

After about 15 minutes of waiting, I finally got the ramen. I was immediately overpowered by the aroma of dashi, something I have never experienced before. From the shop history posted in the entrance way, I gathered that this shop was striving for the ultimate umami bowl, which explains the dashi. I tried the beef first, and it was nicely cooked. However, the bowl was completely lacking in beef flavor. The shop's signature blend of barrel aged shoyu was lost in the truffle oil and dashi. The pork was shabu-shabu style and forgettable.

There was an egregious use of balsamic vinegar and some kind of a fig compote lazily added to the dish. Akin to dumping barbecue sauce on a plate of carbonara, this culinary disaster would have ruined the dish if I had tasted it at the beginning. It's astounding to me that the chefs and general public have no issue with this. As for the other toppings, the menma and negi were fine.

As the bowl cooled down, I was able to better taste the shoyu blend, and it was a nice complement to the truffle and dashi flavors.

The noodles were house made, the appropriate thickness for shoyu, twisted/folded into the bowl in a way I've never seen before, and had a very nice springy chewiness.

Overall, this was an experimental bowl which fell flat and is not worth the ¥2000 price point. If you only have one chance to get ramen in Tokyo, go...

The Bowl (Wonton Shio Ramen)

Before anything else, the good: Tsuta's Chasiu is brilliant. Thinly sliced and packed with flavor. I wish I ordered extra. Their noodles are perfectly cooked as well.

Now the bad: The rest of the toppings are a bit generic, sadly. Even the wonton (which you pay an extra ¥300 for was woefully under cooked). The broth was - in my opinion - quite lacking in flavor, even for a "light based" Shio.

The Atmosphere and Line:

We arrived at 7:20PM and immediately asked the staff who was accepting tickets whether we could line up even though we didn't have a ticket. He said it was fine so we lined up and waited. I knew there was a ticket system in place, so I expected a long wait.

Naturally, customers who had tickets were given priority and went ahead of us. However, by 8:20 we were noticing that groups without tickets were being asked to enter and essentially skip the line as long as they were in a smaller group. (There were only 2 of us).

I'm not sure, but if someone could clarify this for me, I would appreciate it. I couldn't fathom why were being skipped by people who came later than us. Furthermore, I didn't understand the ordering system.

From what I could gather, once you're in line, they let you order at the vending machine, then hand over your ticket before you are seated. The weird thing was this system seemed completely random to me. Some groups were being asked to get their orders from the very back of the line, hours before they actually got a seat, while we - who were actually next in line - got asked to order just before we entered.

This might be a nitpick on my part, but a semblance of order would go a long way to alleviating the 1-2 hour wait for a bowl or ramen in the cold.

Once inside, im afraid the atmosphere seemed colder. First, while the soup spoon and chopsticks are clearly in place once you are seated, you are expected to stand and pour your own water at the dispenser by the door. This is a bit of a hassle when you're seated at the end of a very cramped space.

There was sense of elitism that I couldn't shake off from all the staff while I was being served my meal. The chefs looked cold and slightly miffed that they were serving you at all.

Final thoughts:

Ramen is comfort food. If a bowl of ramen doesn't make you happy, it's bad ramen. Simple as that. Don't waste your time at this place.

Go somewhere and enjoy a bowl that actually warms you up instead of feeling like you intruded onto someone's home table and passive aggressively urged you to leave.

At ¥1,700 (their most expensive ramen) this is not worth your time nor money and frankly does not deserve its Michelin Star.

I suggest heading to either Nakiryu in Otsuka or Kagari Ginza, both of which will neither rip you off nor ask you to pay for the "privilege" of reserving a place in line (an...