Guangzhou Ichiba 広州市場, Shinjuku, Tokyo

Well, you want a review of a hole in the wall with good food?  Then, I got one for you.  Note that I'm not actually sure what the Japanese reading of the restaurant's name is, so I'll go with the Chinese reading of it.   This noodle shop is located closest to the West exit of Shinjuku station and is within sight of the big Shinjuku post office, on the same street.  Yodabashi Camera branches are all close to this one.

To start, the restaurant is not the cleanest, and well, it really felt like I was in Chinatown in Chicago rather than anywhere in Japan.  I think that is a good sign food-wise.  There are only about 12 seats at this one, so you might have to wait a bit.  I ordered the shrimp wanton men set, which includes fried gyoza.  This one set me back 1020 yen, which is about 12 dollars.  After I ordered, I realized that I could choose the flavor of the soup that holds the noodles and the dumplings.  They didn't offer a choice to me, perhaps because I quickly put my headphones back on after I ordered.  I ended up with the thickest soup, which was quite flavorful (I could imagine the pork simmering for hours on end to create the thick broth).  As Rachel Ray would say, yum-o!!!

The noodles were very thick too, much like tsukemen noodles.  There were three wantons and I saved them for last.  Unlike the wantons that I am accustomed to such as those from Hong Kong Cafe on Algonquin Road near Schaumburg, these were like shrimp gyoza.  Maybe because Japanese are more familiar with these kinds of dumplings?  Regardless, they were very yummy.

The gyoza were literally out of this world.  I never had such light gyoza, in fact they almost had a meringue-like feel to them.  I probably could have eaten 50 of them if I could afford to, but unfortunately, only five came with my set.  I really liked the gyoza here because they were so unique.

All in all, I give Guangzhou Ichiba four dumplings out of four dumplings for the shrimp wanton men and the gyoza.  When in Shinjuku, I'll definitely be back.