Shisomen Noodle Nightmare?

haha welcome to the shisomen experience, it's a coin flip every time. i've had the shio be amazing one visit and the chashu taste like a sad wet paper towel the next. the miso is the worst offender though, it's too easy for them to just dump paste and call it a day. if you go back, try the shoyu and add the seasoned egg, it's the only thing that's consistently good there

the real move is to skip the main location and go to their xhain spot on a tuesday afternoon, it's way calmer and the quality is more stable cause they're not slammed. also, there's this tiny place called takumi nine in prenzlauer berg that does a similar shoyu for 11 euro and i've never had a bad bowl there, no queue either

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I think the problem is that Shisomen built its reputation on being this hidden gem, and now that it's blown up, the quality control has slipped. I've had a great bowl there once and a mediocre one the next time, which is frustrating for the price. If you're willing to queue again, go for the shoyu on a weekday lunch when they're less rushed, it's their most reliable bowl. Otherwise, head to Cocolo in Mitte for a consistently good ramen that doesn't require an hour of your life.

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You probably caught them on an off day, but the inconsistency is a real thing there. I've been maybe six times and the shio is the only bowl that's never let me down, it's lighter so they can't hide behind heavy miso paste if the base is weak. Also, if you're going back, skip the evening queue entirely and hit the one on Linienstrasse around 2pm on a Thursday, I've walked straight in every time.

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Worth noting that Berlin street names have official umlaut and ß rules that trip people up, so a sign showing "Strasse" versus "Straße" is not actually a spelling error, just an older transcription. Same with "ue" versus "ü" (e.g. "Kantstrasse" vs "Kantstraße"), both are considered valid renderings and you'll see the ß version on the blue Schilder and the ss version on older plaques or in databases that predate Unicode. If the difference you're seeing is between those two forms, there's nothing to fix and both are technically correct.

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if the signs u mean are the old enamel ones on the house facades those are often protected as Baudenkmal so nobody's allowed to correct them even if the spelling is outdated. the binding version is whatever is in the Berliner Strassenverzeichnis plus the entry in the Liegenschaftskataster, so if u tell me the street i can point u to the right Bezirksamt Mitte or Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf page. tbh the merged district thing is real but the facade signs are a separate story, theyre basically museum pieces at this point

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honestly thats super common in Charlottenburg, the district offices were merged from older Bezirke and nobody ever fixed all the Schilder. if its a real street you can check the official strassenverzeichnis on berlin.de, that list is what the Burgeramt actually goes by. which street is it? some of the Kaiserdamm / Kantstrasse signs are notorious for this.

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