Recommended bowl: Neighborhood legend

Chuka Soba Mitaka is a neighborhood legend. Originally named Eguchi, the shop was founded by master Takayoshi Eguchi not long after World War II in the year 1949. Eguchi-san learned to make ramen from a Chinese immigrant chef in the city of Okachimachi in the late 1940’s. He ran the shop for several decades before passing it onto his son, who ran the shop until his death in 2009. Eventually, one of the apprentices, Shigemitsu Hashimoto, who had worked at Eguchi since 2004, relaunched the shop as Chūka Soba Mitaka in the same location, serving the same soup recipe, on May 1, 2010.

The shop is hidden in the basement of an old commercial building on a corner of the main drag of Mitaka, about a five-minute walk from the station. The ramen here is as simple and straightforward as you'd expect from a dish that hasn't changed much since the 1940’s.The shoyu soup is made with pork, potato, onion and ginger — with a generous whiff of konbu. The noodles are house-made and have a unique, soba-like texture. The chashu topping is simple and old-school. Wontonmen and a couple side dishes are also on the menu for a few hundred yen more, as is ice-cold beer. Pure Tokyo nostalgia.