Menya Hishio: Yuasa Soy Sauce Ramen, and Gyoza Where the Dip Is the Star

Overview

Wakayama is tonkotsu-shoyu country, and its ramen is usually filed under the Ide school or the Shakomae school. Menya Hishio belongs to neither. Its bowl is jet-black, and the black is soy sauce — from Yuasa, the town Japan credits as soy sauce’s birthplace. One date needs untangling: the 1881 that runs through the shop’s story belongs to Marushin Honke, the Yuasa brewery whose soy sauce it uses, not to the noodle shop, which opened on 4 August 2010. At the original branch, walls and tables are built from cedar barrels that once aged it; hishio is the old word for the paste soy sauce grew out of.

The shop exists because its founder walked into the brewery and asked. Marushin Honke agreed, and went further than a supplier usually would — the banners outside are the brewery’s, and its fifth-generation head, Shinko Toshio, drew the logo. The signature bowl sets Tarujikomi, a barrel-aged soy sauce, over a pork base, cut with other soy sauces and dried-fish powder so the salt never bites, under medium-thick wavy noodles. Staff spritz the surface with that same soy sauce as the bowl reaches the table. Dark as it looks, it drinks mild.

A second bowl, Yuasa white soy sauce ramen, was built for the station branch: chicken frames with kombu and katsuobushi, seasoned with Shirashibori, a dashi-free white soy sauce, under flat wavy noodles. The karaage is marinated overnight in sake, mirin and shio-koji and needs no dip, while the winged gyoza arrives with Yorozubishio, a soy sauce sweetened with hon-mirin and cane sugar — here the dip really does outshine the dumpling. The original is about ten minutes’ walk from Nankai’s Wakayamashi Station, the branch two minutes from JR Wakayama. Both are cash only and take no bookings; listed hours differ by branch and by source, so check before you go.