(upbeat music)
- [Reviewer] So in the US, ramen is the
Japanese noodle that everyone talks about.
But in Japan, udon noodles are everywhere too.
Tsuru Ton Tan is a chain that's particularly popular.
It has a huge menu, huge spaces,
and lots of toppings you don't usually find
on noodles like caviar and uni.
People go at all times of the day.
They opened their first overseas location
in New York last year.
(upbeat music)
People here know ramen.
Ramen, everyone kind of understands now,
but udon is a noodle that not
as many people are familiar with.
- Well, udon is more like, we say, like a street food
a home food.
It's nothing fancy.
Especially in certain regions like Kagawa,
which is the origin of udon,
the people do literally eat, like, every day.
Tsuru Ton Tan in Tokyo is located
in all the party towns, like party cities.
All times, there's a line for the lunch occasion,
dinner occasion, after-drink occasion.
We actually get the udon with ambience and great service,
so this is actually how Tsuru Ton Tan
became popular in Japan.
They don't think that, "Let's go eat udon" they say,
"Let's go eat Tsuru Ton Tan."
- Honestly the more you talk about it, the more it
sounds like Cheesecake Factory to me.
It's one of those crazy big chains?
- Really they can cater any kind of people I would say.
- The restaurants are all humongous,
they only go to spaces where they're really big,
and they also have humongous menus, and your menu I mean,
- Yeah, that's true yeah. - your menu's huge!
- We have this colorful menu here.
- Yeah.
- Let's see for the appetizer
I will recommend this Udon Pon.
- All right, what is it? - Well, this is actually
a dumpling made of the udon dough.
- Oh, cool.
How about an udon, what do you like?
- I think we should get maybe two or three,
maybe one for the cold?
- Yes. - One, non-traditional
and one traditional I would say.
- For sure.
There are 35 menu items here,
but I heard you guys have even more options in Japan.
How many udon flavors do you have overall?
- So again, we opened '89 so about 20 years.
So far we have about 400 recipes in house.
- [Reviewer] 400 over the course of the last 20 years.
- [Joji] Yeah, right. Yes.
- All right, so everything is here.
I got a huge selection of stuff, starting off with the
Sizzling Sukiyaki
and can confirm when it landed it was indeed sizzling.
This is one of the udons without a broth.
It's a stir fried udon.
Joji said that more Americans tend to order it,
which makes sense to me.
Pop that yolk, get that yolk all over the place.
It's kinda fun they have these things on top of
these humongous bowls to keep it warm before it comes.
So this is the Uni Creme Broth.
There are pieces of uni on top, and just a really
creamy sauce here.
You know, I usually don't see broths this thick
with it so I'm curious to try it.
It's almost like a seafood bisque,
if you've had like, a lobster bisque that's super rich.
So this is the most traditional one I have ordered.
It's a dashi broth, so when you think of udon
this is the kind of broth it's gonna come with.
They have the thinner udon more with broths like this
that are a little lighter flavored because the thinner
noodles tend to soak up more of that broth.
Ooh.
Red hot.
It kinda smells how it looks,
in that it looks like buffalo sauce
and it smells like buffalo sauce.
It does not taste like buffalo sauce.
Sweet, sour, spicy, this is a fun one.
All right, finally.
This is the signature for udon for Tsuru Ton Tan.
They claim to have invented the caviar udon.
It's crazy you can see the little pieces all over it.
It's not just the pile on top, it's actually scattered
over each noodle coating it.
It's kind of amazing to see.
I can see why it's the signature dish.
Because there's not a broth,
it really is completely focused on the noodle.
The bowl of caviar udon makes me feel fancy,
but it's also just pretty delicious.
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