Tatsu Y.
Yelp
Looks like i get to write the first gaijin review.
A colleague and good buddy of mine first brought me here when I came to visit on a business trip last year. That time, I was thoroughly impressed. Great atmosphere, nice staff, and slammin' ramen. The soup base I was told has a ホルモン (roughly translated: chitterlings) base, so is very hearty and full-flavored, but not as overpowering as you might expect soup made by boiling pig poop chutes to be. I know that's not the most appetizing of descriptions so just trust me, it's delicious. The noodles are excellent and in general the other ingredients are well done (spicy moyashi, chashuu, etc.). To top it all off, when you finish your ramen, they give you a bowl of okayu to mix with whatever is left of your dipping sauce (which they will kindly top off for you) so that you end up with a fantastic bowl of zousui.
Recently, I found myself in Tokyo again on another business trip, freshly deplaned and feeling super sh**ty thanks to the fact that I'd broken my cardinal rule of in-flight dining - never eat the fish. (I was flying ANA and the good service and pretty FA's made me let down my guard...it was only later that it occurred to me that ANA or not, I was flying from the US...meaning the fish would have had to have been prepared by a US caterer. Doh!)
Anyway, after spending 6 hours curled in a fetal position in economy class, I needed something hearty but not too harsh to set my gastrointestinal system right again. There were plenty of ramen places near my hotel, but 龍の家 was calling to me like a siren I could not ignore, especially the zousui. I hopped on subway until I got to Shinjuku and stumbled through the rainy streets, hoping that my vague memory of the location would get me there. Thankfully, it did. Line wasn't too bad --- just one couple ahead of me and we ended up standing outside for only about 10 minutes before we could be seated.
This time around, the ramen wasn't quite as revelatory as I felt it had been the first time around...but to be fair, I had eaten that ANA fish, so I wasn't really right to begin with. I was so exhausted and full by the time I finished the ramen that I didn't even stick around to have the zousui that had been my goal in the first place.
All this to say, after my first visit, I would have given it this place 5 stars, but I'm holding one in reserve after this last visit until I get a chance to go again and determine which experience was more on the mark. So consider this 4 stars more like 4 and a half likely to be upgraded to 5.