Udon Shin, Shinjuku: Springy Noodles and Perfect Tempura

Hi! It's Yoko, your food blogger.

Do you ever struggle to decide what to eat for lunch in Shinjuku? Or is it just me...

I heard there's an udon shop that's said to be the most popular in Shinjuku, so I stopped by while I was in the area on an errand.

It lived up to its reputation, so I'm sharing it here.

The shop is near the west exit of Shinjuku Station. The area is mostly office buildings and it's not on a main street, so you might miss it if you don't know it's there!

When I got to the shop, there was a long line, maybe 15 to 20 people.

Many of them seemed to be tourists from overseas, with suitcases or DSLR cameras around their necks.

You can watch the udon being boiled from outside. It must be a novelty, because lots of people were taking photos!

After waiting a while, a staff member came out and handed me a menu.

There's a huge variety of udon, but the photos make it easy to choose!

Everything is labeled in English and Korean as well, which makes it very friendly to overseas visitors.

The most stressful thing about traveling abroad is not being able to read the menu. I'm sure visitors appreciate this!

There was also a Western-style kamatama udon with Parmesan cheese, but I was really craving tempura, so I chose the tempura zaru udon (cold udon with tempura).

By the way, they take your order while you're still in line, so if your whole group isn't there yet, the server will scold you.

When the two customers ahead of me tried to let in two friends who arrived later, the server told them off in simple English: "No! Together!" "It's the rule!" "Everybody waiting!"
Be careful.

After about 20 minutes, I finally got inside. The shop is fairly small, with four tables and about ten counter seats.

J-pop by Masashi Sada, Ayumi Hamasaki, EL&T and Jitterin' Jinn was playing, and the mood was bright.

The songs were all over the place stylistically, but that might be fun for overseas visitors too (lol).

The udon and tempura are boiled and fried only after you order, so you get them fresh and piping hot.

After waiting about 10 minutes, my tempura zaru udon arrived!

The tempura comes with shishito pepper, carrot, kabocha squash, eggplant, and two shrimp. So crispy!

I love fried food, and I'm picky about tempura.

It's often soggy, or the ingredients are too small for the batter, and I rarely find one that satisfies me, but Shin's is delicious!

The shrimp in particular is big, and fried until light and plump.

The carrot tempura is tender and sweet too. Sometimes it's undercooked and still hard, but this one was delicious.

The udon is well chilled, firm and springy.

And it's incredibly long. I pulled and pulled and couldn't see the end.

I think it was about 60 cm. It was so long that it went out of the camera frame (lol).

I dipped it into the sauce and drew it out bit by bit to get it all in...

The dipping sauce has a strong aroma of bonito flakes.

Salt, ground sesame, and shichimi (seven-spice) are on the table, so you can adjust the flavor to your taste.

Honestly, for ¥1,300 this is pretty wonderful quality...

The thing you're probably most curious about is how long you'll wait: plan on 30 to 40 minutes before you eat.

I went on a weekday around 1 p.m. and waited 20 minutes outside and another 10 minutes inside.

When I left at 2 p.m., the line had shrunk to about 10 people, so if you hate lines, avoid peak hours!

Udon Shin

1F Soma Building, 2-20-16 Yoyogi, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 151-0053
11:00-22:00
03-6276-7816