You can now eat chilled ramen supervised by a popular shop in Sendai that closed down in Tokyo!
Menkui Wanderer（麺喰ワンダラー）
column 2025.06.28 Kudan Isai
[Limited time only] Uufuushin(五福星) supervised chilled Inaniwa dashi chuka soba (1,200 yen)
A popular shop for sardine ramen has come out with an interesting limited menu. It has started selling chilled Inaniwa dashi chuka soba from June 13th, supervised by Uufuushin(五福星), a super famous and popular shop in Sendai that has now closed down.
Isai(井さい) is originally from Tsujita(つじ田). How did he get connected to Uufuushin(五福星)? I lined up before the shop opened to answer that question. As soon as the shutters opened, I got the question (lol). Apparently, they only recently met, and Uufuushin has been teaching him a lot about ramen. Uufuushin is closed, so I guess Oyakata Hayasaka has some free time.
The menu introduction says the following.
“After the establishment of the shop, we gained experience in learning how to make ramen from scratch for the first time, and we combined the knowledge, skills, and “way of being” of Uufuushin’s Hayasaka to create the “Uufuushin Supervised Chilled Inaniwa Dashi Chuka Soba(Ramen)” with Inoue’s thoughts. “We would be happy if you would think of it as ‘Isai’s Inachu’ every year when it gets hot.” “We will serve it for a while, while it’s hot,” so it seems that it will be available until the end of August. Moreover, from the way it is written, it seems that they are prepared to make it a standard summer menu.
The noodles are “Inaniwa Chuka Soba” from Sato Yoetsu Honpo in Akita Prefecture. The soup is made with makonbu kelp from Hakodate, Hokkaido. The topping is homemade roast beef made with domestic beef. The noodles, soup, and toppings are all unique, and in baseball terms, they are like the cleanup hitters. Under the guidance of Uufuushin’s master Hayasaka, the owner Inoue has supported the other players to create this menu.
First, try the soup. Wow, the Japanese dashi soup is so good that it seeps into your body. The konbu and dried fish are effective and you can drink it. Your body craves it so much that you want to drink it directly from the bowl without being able to keep up with the soup spoon. I’ve eaten the noodles at many places and am used to them, but I’m once again convinced of their potential. Roast beef is also good for the cold version. I wonder if there were any additional toppings? I want to eat more. The satsuma-age, konbu ingredients, and spicy sauce also work well as supporting roles. If you’re in the area or like cold ramen, please come!
Shop Information
Kudan Isai(九段 井さい) Official Information
2-5-1 SN Building, Iidabashi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 102-0072
Autor of this article
■Hiroshi Osaki (大崎 裕史); Chairman of the Board of Directors of Ramen Databank Co., Ltd. One of the founders of the Japan Ramen Association. Executive Committee Chairman of the Tokyo Ramen Festa. Born in 1959 in Aizu, the land of ramen. While working at an advertising agency, he launched the ramen information site “Tokyo Ramen Shops” in 1995. Founded Ramen Databank Co., Ltd. in 2005. Became chairman of the board of directors in 2011. He has appeared in many magazines and on television as “the man who calls himself the man who has eaten the most ramen in Japan” (as of the end of June 2024, he has eaten about 14,000 ramen shops and about 29,000 bowls). His books include “Muteki no Ramenron” (The Invincible Ramen Theory) (Kodansha Shinsho) and “Nihon Ramen Hishi(Japan Ramen Hidden Story)” (Nihon Keizai Shimbun Publishing).