Ramen @ Nakajima Tei, Deitos, Hakata Station

 

If there is anything constant in this world, is death, taxes, and my love of ramen. And for a particular slightly tipsy evening, I brought a colleague to one of my favourite ramen spots. Conveniently located in the Ramen Street in Hakata Station, this was a good slurp down after a round of drinking after work. 

One of the rare occasions that there is no line!

Slightly different to my previous visit (click here), Nakajima Tei provides noodles with a more traditional stance, mainly Nagahama style ramen. It is a type of tonkotsu broth that is slightly thinner but has its own flavour to it. I cannot really pin down what it is, but if you put a regular tonkotsu and a Nagahama bowl in front of me, I could taste the difference. Intricacies aside, I love them both and when it comes to Nagahama ramen, Nakajima Tei does it well. 

Decadence!

I got myself the regular charshu bowl as I was not really in the mood for eggs at the time. Still, this was really tasty. The noodles had a nutty flavour which I like. It was springy but not too chewy. Imagine something between angel hair and spaghetti. The soup latched on to it like some sort of adhesive, which gave it an interesting flavour profile too. 

Almost perfect, and that is pretty good already. 

And in terms of the soup, it was creamy yet not too think. The pork flavour is evident here and was incredibly punchy. Patrons who do not like rich soups may want to avoid this, it can be a bit too fatty for some people. However, this will really do you good during a cold winter day. It was also well seasoned and is not too salty for my taste. 

Incredible to say the least

Since this is a charshu ramen, we need to talk about that too right? This was done very well too. The meat was chewy and tender. Everything seems to just flake apart and the meaty muscle was just barely holding on to the sinew that was still attached. The flavour was incredible too. It was the classic sweet and salty which many have tasted before. Despite that, I found this done so well that it is worth mentioning. That is despite its simplicity. Lip smackingly good. 

Front of the house. 

Everything was done to perfection and it is one outlet that I do make return visits. Not to mention this was decently priced. My charshu bowl stood at a modest 991 yen, which is average for most places like this.  My first visit was in fact December 2020 with a few friends that I met while I was still studying my masters.  It is just that I finally made the effort in writing this. Well, better late than never. So if you would like some really good noodles, you cannot go wrong with Nakajima Tei. There are two other branches, which is Lalaport Fukuoka and MarkIS shopping mall, which are not as convenient as Hakata Station.  As such, if you would like to visit the branch that I have tried, then the address is as follows: 

〒812-0012 Fukuoka, Hakata Ward, Hakataekichuogai, 1−1  2F, Hakata Ramen Street