We arrived at the first restaurant Bunzoh (文蔵) at about 11.40 and there were 3 or 4 people already eating. Apparently it's rated the most popular ramen restaurant in Saku. The walls were covered with posters making it look a bit like a 'Yankee' diner inside. We each ordered a different ramen:
- one with pork-flavour soup (豚骨醤油) - photo 1- one fish-and-pork-flavour soup (豚骨魚介) - photo 2
- one pork-flavour soup with extra pork meat and an egg (文蔵ラーメン) - photo 3
- one miso-flavour soup (味噌豚骨) - photo 4 Mine was the 豚骨魚介 - the fish and pork one - and I enjoyed it quite a lot. It's quite a thick soup, pretty fishy in taste, and the noodles were fat ones which I prefer as they take longer to become soft (I *hate* soft noodles) so I don't have to rush so much to eat it. It was 750 yen (about 5 pounds) and I'd definitely go back for another. Everybody was quite surprised I enjoyed it so much actually, as they all tried the soup and thought it was pretty darn fishy. Of all of them the miso-flavoured ramen was my least favourite; in fact I'm pretty sure if I'd have ordered it I couldn't have finished it. Master, who ordered it, thought it was 'average', but the rest of us thought it was a pretty weird taste and not really very miso-like. I guess we were all reasonably happy with the place overall, but it's a little hard to believe this is the number one ramen place in Saku.