Men-Ya Kaijin / 麺屋海神

Men-Ya Kaijin in Shinjuku / 麺屋海神 新宿

I've searched for some ramen shops in Shinjuku and it was about a year ago I found this place on internet.
Finally I dropped by and tried the ramen today.

It's called Men-Ya Kaijin (麺屋海神) located near South-East exit of Shinjuku station.
There's a sign on the street and also on the wall, but it's black and white sign so that it's not that vivid.

Right next to the building, there's Taito arcade, which in red and loud, so you should be able to find it easy once you find the game center.

There's a stairs and the ramen shop is located on the 2nd floor.

*Attention*
There's sliding door at the entrance, but it has a notice;
"Please don't close the door all the way. We intentionally leave some space to let the air circulate."
(Forgot to take a photo...)
引き戸の入口に張り紙があって、「換気のために少し開けてあります」と注意書きがあるので、ドアを10センチくらい開けたままにしておく。

Inside of the restaurant, there're 3-4 tables for 4 persons and a counter with 5-6 chairs.
When I got there was around 6PM and not crowded so I could sit at counter.

Men-Ya Kaijin uses different bony parts of fishes every day.
Today, the soup was made from the following.

From the right;
Red Sea Bream / Read Tai / 真鯛
Yellowtail / ぶり
Japanese Flounder / 平目
Alfonsino / 金目鯛
Conger / 穴子

I ordered Shio-Ramen with Heshiko Onigiri.

Shio means salt.
Heshiko (へしこ) is a traditional preserved food which using Saba / Mackerel and sprinkle salt over it then store and pickle it in Nuka, that is in brine and fermented rice bran.
Onigiri is a rice ball.
I've never had or even heard Heshiko, so I was curious what it was.
初めて聞いた「へしこ」は伝統的な食べ物で、鯖に塩を振り、糠漬けにした加工食品らしい。

While waiting, I was reading some notes at the counter.
Soup: they make every day with seasonal fishes. Not only seasonal but daily they change fishes. Today's broth list is on the wall.

Noodle: using 2 types of flour and carbon purified water to create firm texture. Even thought noodles are thin, it's al dente noodles.

Toppings: Pink one is ground shrimp and cod, the other one is chicken and cartilage. 5 veggie toppings are to add some flavor to the soup.

It was less than 5 minutes to get my bowl in front of me, which was quite surprising.

I ordered the rice ball set, like I mentioned, but it wasn't served with Ramen and the waitress said she'd bring it shortly.
While waiting, I started eating.

Soup was really clear and smooth.

The spoon for the soup was a bit too big and it's impossible to put it into mouth fully.
It was like a curved little turner in round shape.
レンゲと言うか、スプーンが大きくて、口に入らない（汗）

Soup itself was light and didn't have any outstanding point but it definitely had a lot of fish flavors. 
It wasn't stinky, but more like adding scent to the soup and made it more flavorful.

As you can see, the topping doesn't have char siu that is probably most popular item in Ramen bowl.
Instead, they put fine strips of leek, myouga (Japanese ginger), ginger needles (skinny cut ginger), green perilla, and red strings are hot pepper.

普通のラーメンだと、トッピングは必ずと言っていいほどチャーシューが乗っているけれど、ここは白髪ねぎ、ミョウガ、針生姜、大葉、糸唐辛子。

Two balls on the left side, pink one is minced shrimp with cod, and the grayish one is chicken with cartilage.
I'm not big fun of cartilage so that it tasted weird.
What made it worse was that both are covered with flour or some sort of starchy object so that it had slippy and flabby texture outside...
ピンクは海老と鱈のつみれ、灰色のは軟骨入り鶏つみれ。
軟骨が苦手なので、いまいち。そして、両方とも周りに小麦粉か片栗粉が付けられているのか、ブヨブヨ、ヌルヌルした食感。。。

Noodle was thin and a bit hard.
細麺、固め。

I liked the noodle as I like skinny ones with hard texture.
It was simple noodle so that the non-thick and smooth soup went well with the noodle.

Here comes the Heshiko Onigiri.

I was told to put the rice ball into the soup after eating noodles.

It's grilled and had nice smoky flavor.
I didn't ask what the brown powder on the right top, but to me, it tasted like some sort of dashi (broth) powder but some reviews said it was black pepper, Chinese pepper, Heshiko, etc., so I'm no quite sure what's correct.

I put into the soup and flavorful fish scent came out.
スープに入れると、魚の香りがフワッとした。

It was a bit salty and had unique flavor which some wouldn't like.
The longer I let it sit, the darker the soup got.

If you've never eaten Heshiko Onigiri, a traditional preserved yellowtail, it'd be nice to try at least one.

The place was pretty clean and at the counter, there's a basket so I could put my stuff there while eating.

They're playing jazz music and pretty quiet, however, the employees were talking pretty loudly so it's kind of unusual and annoying.

The rice ball was fine but I may just order a regular Shio Ramen or other flavor next time, and I may ask them not to put the fish and shrimp minced balls as I didn't like them much or they didn't give any accent to the bowl.

Men-Ya Kaijin / 麺屋海神

2F, Sanraku bldg.
3-35-7, Shinjuku,
Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo

東京都新宿区新宿3-35-7 　さんらくビル2F

Open: 
Monday - Saturday: 11:00AM ~ 3:00PM, 4:30PN ~ 11:00PM
Sundays: 11:00AM ~ 11:00PM
(Irregular holidays / 不定休)