Rumored "Black Fried Rice" is also Black Ramen? Shinpuku Hakkan Akihabara Branch: Yakimeshi (regular) + Chinese noodle (small), 1,100 yen!

When you come to Akihabara, you may have a hard time deciding where to have lunch.

In order to help you choose the right place for lunch, here are some Akiba eats recommended by Shun Gori, who is a frequent visitor to Akihabara even when he has no other business in Akihabara.

As an Akibaite who likes to spend his money on his hobbies, I would like to introduce mainly dishes that can be eaten for less than 1,000 yen, assuming that the amount of money you can spend for lunch is within 1,000 yen. However, let me first say that this time I have a bit of a leg up.

Akihabara is a fierce battleground for ramen. If you take a short walk, you can eat delicious ramen, but Chinese food is not only ramen. It is natural to think, "Ramen is good, but sometimes I want to eat delicious fried rice! It is the natural order of things.

This time, we visited the Akihabara branch of Shinpuku Hakkan, where you can eat "black fried rice," which has recently become a hot topic in the Akiba area.

Shinpuku Caikan is the oldest Chinese noodle specialty restaurant in Kyoto, founded in 1938, and is said to be the origin of Kyoto ramen. The Shinpuku Sakaikan Akihabara Branch opened in August 2015.

It is located in a back alley about a five-minute walk from the Showa-dori exit of JR Akihabara Station.

The restaurant has 6 tables with 26 seats, and the aisles are wide enough to provide a comfortable atmosphere.

There is no specific lunch menu, but a "special set menu" is available, which can be ordered at any time, regardless of lunch time. Of course, you can also order single items, so please order according to your hunger and pocketbook.

Normally, I would have ordered a single item to keep the price under 1,000 yen, but this time I wanted to try both the "black fried rice" and "black ramen," so I ordered the "small Chinese noodle + grilled rice" for 1,100 yen.

If ordered separately, the price would be 780 yen for the small Chinese noodle and 630 yen for the regular yakisimeshi, for a total of 1,410 yen, so the set menu is definitely more economical.

So, here is the "Yakisimeshi Naminami," or black fried rice as it is rumored to be.

It is indeed black ......, and the portion is generous for a regular dish. Depending on how hungry you are, you may not need the Chinese noodles.

And here is the "Chuka-soba small".

One would imagine that normal chuka-soba would be a clearer color, but it clearly looks black.

The toppings were a large amount of green onions, with a large amount of bean sprouts underneath, and a large piece of chashu pork hidden further down.

The noodles are simple, medium-thick noodles, and the soup coats them moderately well. The black soup seemed to be the color of soy sauce, but the flavor was not as strong as one might expect from the color, giving the impression of a light Chinese noodle soup.

In the Akiba area, where there are many "kotteri" ramen stores, it is rare to find a place where one can enjoy such a light Chinese noodle soup.

While eating the ramen, I also tried the black fried rice.

The fried rice was a little moist rather than crispy, but it was seasoned with pepper in a soy sauce base.

Perhaps it was the pepper, but as I continued eating, I began to sweat profusely. The light Chinese noodles and the peppery fried rice seemed to be a perfect match.

I tried dipping the fried rice into the Chinese noodle soup to change the flavor, and it was quite tasty.

This time, we visited Shinpuku Cuisine Akihabara, a restaurant where the rumored "black fried rice" can be eaten.

Although the restaurant does not promote black fried rice in particular, the fried rice and Chinese noodles are both very tasty and reasonably priced, so I highly recommend that you go there to try them.

Since the area around the restaurant is an office district, there is a line outside the restaurant during lunch time on weekdays. It is recommended to go there with plenty of time to spare or a little later than lunch time.

Restaurant Information: Name: "Shinpuku Caikan Akihabara; Address: 1-3-17 Kanda Izumi-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; Phone:03-5835-0209; Business hours: Lunch: 11:00-15:00 LO14:30 Dinner: 17:30-23:00 LO22:30; Closed：Non-scheduled holidays, Year-end and New Year holidays (confirmation required); Store MAP:

Shun Gori

A middle-aged writer with 40 years of experience as a gadgeteer. After working in purchasing for a certain PC manufacturer, he worked as a cab driver and chiropractor before moving to the U.S., China, and Taiwan. A mysterious freelance writer and YouTuber who writes about everything!

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