4AM ramen at a Shinjuku counter

We found it by smell, down a side street behind the Omoide Yokocho tracks. Eight seats, one cook, a ticket machine with no English and a hand-written note that just said today's broth.

You buy a ticket, hand it over, and wait. No small talk. The bowl that came back — tonkotsu gone slightly smoky over the burner, a single sheet of nori, an egg cooked to the exact edge of liquid — was the best thing we ate in ten days.

We never got the name. That's the deal with 4AM in Shinjuku: the city gives you something perfect and asks you not to write down where.