Udon Shin

TLDR; elevated my perception of udon forever. The noodles are bangin’, MUST try. Best meal of my Japan trip by a long shot.

This is what defined udon for me. If I ever think of udon, I will be reminded of this restaurant.

Got the beef udon. The udon noodles were cooked perfectly and the texture had a very slight mochi-like chewiness to it. I know nothing about udon noodles making processes but from the first bite, I could tell it was made with high quality wheat flour as it had a very light but refreshing flavour. Truly amazing, to say the least.

The beef and broth was cooked to perfection too. The melted fat from the beef coated the udon noodles and clung onto it, adding another layer of savoury delight. The broth itself was also infused with the fattiness of the beef and slightly thickened with the starch from the udon.

This bowl of udon was truly unlike any other udon I've tried before! I had my doubts while queueing in line but my expectations were blown out of the water when I took the first bite. I’ve had a handful of dishes in Japan which ended up defining said dish for me, and this is one of them. Compared to what I’ve had from other udon shops, what Udon Shin serves is really in a league of its own.

Now, for the other aspects:

Portions per bowl is just nice. I wasn’t too full and neither was it too little. Just enough to savour and appreciate, without it being too heavy of a meal which would dull the experience.

I also tried the cold udon, but my take was that the udon’s flavour potential wasn’t maximised. Personally, the umami was much more pronounced in hot broth.

And the not-so-fun part (queueing):

Expect the queue time to be insanely long. Personally, I queued for a whopping 3.5 hours. Note that you’re supposed to take a queue number first. You’ll be notified of the estimated duration before your turn. Note that you’ll have to periodically refresh the timer, and once it gets to ~30mins remaining, head down to the shop. You’ll then be allowed to join the queue and the staff will be facilitating this part of the process. IMPORTANT NOTE: expect to not be slotted into the physical queue in sequential order; just show up ~30mins before your turn and ask the staff if you can join the queue.

Not sure if I was unlucky, but my digital queue took 2.5h and physical queue took 1h. Overall, took my queue ticket at 4.30pm and entered the restaurant at 8pm.

Note that it is possible for the shop to close off their queue far before closing time, as the queue backlog can run for a few hours, and it would not make sense for them to open the queue system all the way till closing time. Hence, HIGHLY recommended to grab a queue ticket before 6pm at least.

That being said, in spite of the somewhat painful queue, Udon Shin draws in waves of people daily for a reason. It only took one bite and I was convinced. Given the chance, I would queue for this again without a doubt (maybe with a bit more strategy 🤪).

If I could give a 6/5 I would. Highly recommended. For my fellow foodies out there, this is a place you will need to stop by even if it’s out of the way.

Thank you for the mind-blowing meal 🙇🏻‍♂️ Leave it to the Japanese to make something so insane out of something so simple.