Nibble & scribble: Rokurinsha

Surf and Turf in a bowl – the broth is a potent mix of pork and fish that had layer after layer of flavour. The queues are crazy long so in an attempt to beat the system, we went for the lighter option and the shorter queues – asatsuken (breakfast tsukemen). As a compromise, this is served without the gyofun (dried fish powder) and the broth is lighter.

Dip/dunk noodles, stir and little to coat the noodles and slurp. Once you work through the noodles, add a ladle of hot broth to slurp down the soup. Once the broth was added and the soup was stirred, the soup came to life. What we were once dipping into, because it was more viscous and more warmish to tepid, despite it was fabulously flavourful, muted some of the flavours. With the hot broth, there were so many more layers of flavours that we could taste. Spoon after spoon, more favours emerged - yuzu, smokiness from the bonito, rich porky broth, sweet (from vegetables?), savoury and a gentle heat at the end. This broth is seriously exceptional – I would have never have thought of a making a surf and turf pork and fish broth; and what are all the mysterious ingredients that go into it?! As our first meal in Tokyo for this trip, we were off to a good start.