Kombu Noodles Tsukemen!?

Update:
Hello everyone! This is a small update for this Ibaraki Eats article. I want to apologize first. I made a huge mistake with this article. I wrote that the noodles were made out of kombu, but that is incorrect. The noodles are ramen noodles but they are made in kombu broth. Sorry again for the mistake and I will try my best to limit my mistakes in future posts.

Hello, fellow Ibarakians! I hope you are staying safe with the incoming typhoon and the heavy rains. We are in the last week of August so that means summer is slowly coming to an end, or is it? According to the Japanese weather service, it may continue to be hot until October! Does that mean no autumn? Anyway, since it is not going to cool down anytime soon, how about a nice bowl of refreshing tsukemen? Yes, refreshing tsukemen and cool noodles that will help you deal with these hot temperatures. Where can you get this tsukemen? Only at one of my favorite ramen places and its new location.

Ryusuke's Gakuen Street Location

Ryusuke is well known here in Tsuchiura. Their specialty is chicken ramen and it is amazing. They now have three locations. The main location is in the Nagakuni area of Tsuchiura. I have talked about this place before on the old blog page. Here is the link if you would like to check it out:
https://regaladom24.wixsite.com/website/post/amazing-chicken-ramen-in-tsuchiura

The next location is in Tsuchiura station.
Finally, there is the third and new location in the Kasuge area of Tsuchiura. The Ryusuke Gaukuen Street location. This location opened up at the beginning of summer so it is very new. The street Ryusuke is on leads towards Tsuchiura AEON and the other way goes towards Tsukuba.
The Ibaraki Eats Duo went there a few weeks ago to give this new location a try.

Inside

When we walked into the new Ryusuke location, we were surprised to see how many booths and counter chairs were at this location. The restaurant is fairly big and can fit quite a lot of people. As usual at a ramen place, the ticket vending machine is by the entrance. You pick what you want to eat, a ticket comes out, you give your ticket to the staff, and they escort you to your booth or the counter area.
The day we visited, we were lucky enough to meet the owner. It had been quite a while so it was nice to see him again. He personally escorted us to our table. Very nice guy.

The Menu

I have already talked about Ryusuke's menu before in the old blog so I won't go into all those details. I will go over the new ramen that only this location does.
Both of the new ramens are tsukemen style and you can either order the shoyu (soy sauce) flavor soup or the salt flavored soup. What shocked me were the noodles. There aren't regular ramen noodles, oh no. These are kombu (seaweed) style noodles. That's right. These noodles are made from seaweed.
My wife ordered the salt flavored tsukemen and I ordered the shoyu flavored one.

Shoyu Kombu Noodles Tsukemen

When my tsukemen came to our table, it looked beautiful. I would expect nothing less from Ryusuke. Before I dipped my kombu noodles into my shoyu ramen, my wife stopped me and directed me to some instructions on how to eat this interesting style of ramen.
Step 1, eat the noodles as they are first, no dipping.
I slurped some kombu noodles and was surprised by how cool they were. They weren't cold or anything. They were refreshingly cool and tasty. A little bit chewy and not hard at all.
Step 2, sprinkle some special seaweed salt on the noodles and give it a try. I did that and slurped. I thought this would make the noodles very salty but it didn't. It just gave the noodles a very seaweed taste to it that I found to be nice.
Step 3, dip the noodles into the ramen soup, and don't forget the negi.
After doing the three steps, that is what I did and continued to do. The cool noodles in the hot ramen shoyu soup was a bit weird at first but then I started to love it. The noodles tasted so good with the shoyu soup. The chashu did throw me off a bit since it was very meaty and I was eating kombu noodles, but I still loved my tsukemen ramen. The fresh negi was also a welcome addition to this tsukemen. Everything in it was delicious and I can't wait to have this tsukemen again.

Salt Kombu Noodles Tsukemen

Mrs. Ibaraki Eats ordered the salt flavored soup. She followed all the steps for eating this tsukemen and loved it as much as I did. I let her try some of my shoyu tsukemen. She liked it but was more fond of the salt tsukemen. I tried it as well and can see why she liked it. It was a bit of a lighter flavor than my tsukemen which worked well with the kombu noodles. Plus, it cooled you down the more you ate it which I found to be a pleasant sensation for summer. All and all, both tsukemens were fantastic and the kombu noodles were great. I hope I can go to Ryusuke again soon before summer ends.

Don't forget to order some gyoza!

Ryusuke, you impress me again and again. You are my favorite ramen shop in Tsuchiura and possibly in Southern Ibaraki. We are glad we were able to try out your new shop and can't wait to go back
If you are planning to try this new kombu noodles tsukemen, please note that during lunch time this place gets pretty crowded and you may have to wait a while. The new location also has a parking area, but sometimes it gets full really fast.

So if you are looking for a tasty tsukemen that will help cool you down while dealing with this summer heat, why not give Ryusuke's new Gaukuen Street location a chance? Who knows, you might see us there, happily slurping our kombu noodles.
Enjoy!

For more information on Ryusuke, check out their website:
https://www.ryusukeproject.jp/

One more thing before I finish this post. Ryusuke also holds ramen events during the year. In autumn, Ryusuke throws a huge ramen festival at Tsuchiura's Suigo Park. A lot of different ramen shops from around Japan attend this event. Last year, it was a one-weekend event only. The owner told me that this year, they are aiming for a whole month! Once more details become available, I will let you know. For now, give those kombu noodles a try.