Recommended bowl: House-made noodles

Open since 2009, Zen serves up hearty bowls of light tonkotsu gyokai ramen and tsukemen. The shop has an old school, no-frills feel, with a u-shaped counter and TV playing baseball or Japanese news programs. The main draw here are the house-made noodles, medium-thick and perfectly firm. The soup is a fishy and porky blend — cloudy but not too thick. At night, the shop stays open but under a different name and serves a completely different menu of miso ramen — also worth checking out.