Recommended bowl: Aoyama Tantanmen

This shop is a bit tricky to find, its staircase nestled away like many other hidden compartments in Tokyo. What you will find here is a Chinese influenced shop doing just a few dishes, and doing them well. One of those is tantanmen, a sizzling bowl of sesame based soup with house-made chili oil. The standard bowl is not very spicy, but can be adjusted on a scale of one to five. Toppings include ground pork, wood ear mushrooms, dried shrimp, bean sprouts, sesame seeds and cabbage. Run by president Ozawa-san, whose parents ran a Chinese restaurant in Saitama. Originally Kisurin opened in Asagaya in 1989, the flagship moving to Minami-Aoyama later on. They also have another tantanmen specialty shop in Tokyo and a shop in Nagano prefecture.