Restaurants
- Abram Plaut added a new meal Ramen at Bunzō (らーめん 文蔵) at Ramen Bunzo (らーめん 文蔵)
Recommended bowl: Strong following
Not a famous shop citywide, but one that ramen heads know about. Only open for lunch, a few minutes from Mitaka station, and almost always a line of regular customers patiently waiting at the door. Master Aoyagi-san arrives at the shop every day at 6am to begin making the noodles and preparing ingredients. The master... More
Recommended bowl: Strong following
Not a famous shop citywide, but one that ramen heads know about. Only open for lunch, a few minutes from Mitaka station, and almost always a line of regular customers patiently waiting at the door. Master Aoyagi-san arrives at the shop every day at 6am to begin making the noodles and preparing ingredients. The master serves a double soup of tonkotsu and gyokai, which matches perfectly with the chewy, housemade noodles. The ramen is probably the most popular order (available with tokusei extra toppings), but the tsukemen and aburasoba are also very much worth trying. The tsukemen comes with a light, tangy soup, while the aburasoba — a soupless bowl of noodles, oil, tare sauce and toppings — is equally delicious. Open since 2005. Less
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- Abram Plaut added a new meal Ramen at Anzen Shokudou (安全食堂) at Anzen Shokudo (安全食堂)
Recommended bowl: Real Hakata style
Open since 1974, this beloved shop is familiar to most everyone who lives in Fukuoka. Anzen Shokudou serves a simple pork bone tonkotsu soup, which is being prepped and prepared by a staff of more than 10 at all times. The shop is maximally efficient: your bowl typically arrives in front of you in less than a minute... More
Recommended bowl: Real Hakata style
Open since 1974, this beloved shop is familiar to most everyone who lives in Fukuoka. Anzen Shokudou serves a simple pork bone tonkotsu soup, which is being prepped and prepared by a staff of more than 10 at all times. The shop is maximally efficient: your bowl typically arrives in front of you in less than a minute after ordering. There's nothing especially distinctive going on here, just quick, hot and tasty tonkotsu — which is exactly why the locals love it. The yaki-meshi (fried rice) comes in a huge serving size and is super popular. Less
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- Abram Plaut added a new meal Ramen at Yamaguchi (らぁ麺やまぐち) at Ramen Yamaguchi (らぁ麺やまぐち)
Recommended bowl: Tori-soba master
Yamaguchi was opened in 2013 by Yamaguchi-san, a well respected veteran of the Tokyo ramen scene. The bowls of shoyu torisoba he whips up here are among the very best in Tokyo. The soup is a golden brown, layered with chicken fat, and is made using chickens from Yamaguchi-san's hometown of Aizu, Fukushima. The soft... More
Recommended bowl: Tori-soba master
Yamaguchi was opened in 2013 by Yamaguchi-san, a well respected veteran of the Tokyo ramen scene. The bowls of shoyu torisoba he whips up here are among the very best in Tokyo. The soup is a golden brown, layered with chicken fat, and is made using chickens from Yamaguchi-san's hometown of Aizu, Fukushima. The soft and succulent tori-chashu is supreme level, and the bowl also comes topped with wontons filled with chicken thigh meat. Noodles are supplied by Teigaku, based in Kyoto. Premium ingredients and masterfully executed. Less
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- Abram Plaut added a new meal Ramen at La-Show-Han (担々麺本舗 辣椒漢) at La-Show-Han (担々麺本舗 辣椒漢)
Recommended bowl: Top class tantanmen
La-Show-Han is one of Tokyo's top tantanmen specialists. Master Okada-san lived in Hong Kong for years and speaks Chinese. He has studied the spices and flavors used in traditional dandanmien, along with other Asian cooking traditions. He serves several tantanmen variations at his shop, from a standard Chinese-derived... More
Recommended bowl: Top class tantanmen
La-Show-Han is one of Tokyo's top tantanmen specialists. Master Okada-san lived in Hong Kong for years and speaks Chinese. He has studied the spices and flavors used in traditional dandanmien, along with other Asian cooking traditions. He serves several tantanmen variations at his shop, from a standard Chinese-derived tantanmen to a bowl that uses Thai chilies for a Southeast Asian influence and kick. He even serves a classic shoyu ramen. But if you ask Okada-san for his personal recommendation, he will invariably suggest 'premium shiru-nashi-tantanmen.'
The dish is served without soup. It's just choice noodles over a bed of heavily spiced ground pork, with a thick sauce of chilies, sesame, Szechuan peppercorns and peanuts, along with several other ingredients we've yet to identify. This is a bowl you eat maze-style by mixing up all of the ingredients at the outset like you're saucing a pasta.
Hot tip: The serving size here isn't huge, so big eaters are advised to order extra noodles (just tell the staff, 'omori,' when you're entering your order in the ticket machine). Less
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塩つけそば / Shio Tsukesoba / Motenashi Kuroki — Asakusabashi, Tokyo
Tanrei soup uses two types of chicken (Koshu and Tamba Black), Iwate duck, pork back bones, kombu, shiitake, daikon, tomatoes and vegetables. Each ingredient is simmered for the appropriate amount of time to maximize its flavor. The soup is combined with a super concentrated... More
塩つけそば / Shio Tsukesoba / Motenashi Kuroki — Asakusabashi, Tokyo
Tanrei soup uses two types of chicken (Koshu and Tamba Black), Iwate duck, pork back bones, kombu, shiitake, daikon, tomatoes and vegetables. Each ingredient is simmered for the appropriate amount of time to maximize its flavor. The soup is combined with a super concentrated dashi extracted from niboshi, asari clams, chicken-bushi, kombu, shiro shoyu, gyokai and honey. The shio tare blends five varieties of salt, including sun-dried salt, Japanese sea salt (made by hand), seaweed salt, rock salt and lake salt. Noodles are house-made, no msg or chemical additives. Toppings utilize premium ingredients such as oven-roasted Spanish Galician chestnut pork belly, straw-grilled and smoked Japanese pork thigh and domestic chicken breast. Chicken meatballs are made from a mix of young and old chickens, menma is rehydrated for one week with dashi before being used. Finished with kujo negi and garlic chives.
Master Naoto Kuroki-san was born in Tokyo, the son of a fishmonger. Determined to pursue a career in cooking, he graduated from the Hattori Nutrition College and worked at a Japanese restaurant for five years. Following that he worked briefly at an Italian restaurant, before joining a major Japanese restaurant company. It was then that he discovered his love for ramen, quitting his job suddenly to train himself so he could open his own shop. Motenashi Kuroki opened in Akihabara in 2011, operating for 12 years before eventually moving to a larger, more modern space in Asakusabashi. 13 seats. New location open since October 29th, 2023 @motenashi.kuroki Less
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- Abram Plaut added a new meal Ramen at Ōkami Soup (狼スープ ) at Okami Soup (狼スープ)
Recommended bowl: Wolf miso
A solid bowl of Sapporo-style miso ramen here. The seem to drop a few spices into the bowl, which adds a dash of uniqueness to the shop. But this is a blue collar bowl; nothing fancy. Okami means 'wolf' in Japanese. When asked why he went with this name, the master says “because wolves have a tough image.”
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- Abram Plaut added a new meal Ramen at Zenya (ぜんや) at Zenya (ぜんや)
Recommended bowl: Top-class for shio
The master of Zenya, Iikura-san, worked as a government official in Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry for many years before resigning from his post to become a ramen chef. He is entirely self-taught. At Zenya, Iikura-san presides over a massive pot of boiling soup containing chicken, carrots,... More
Recommended bowl: Top-class for shio
The master of Zenya, Iikura-san, worked as a government official in Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry for many years before resigning from his post to become a ramen chef. He is entirely self-taught. At Zenya, Iikura-san presides over a massive pot of boiling soup containing chicken, carrots, onions and other vegetables. Most ramen chefs prepare their soup stock before service hours, discarding the boiled ingredients so that they have a pure soup to work with in the kitchen. But Iikura-san keeps it earthy. He ladles each bowl directly from his cauldron of simmering, chunky ingredients.
These earthy optics are carried through in the homey flavors. The master has taken a down-home chicken vegetable soup and transposed it into a highly refined bowl of Japanese shio ramen. Iikura-san says he scoured the world for his preferred variety of salt to use as the base of his tare, eventually settling on an obscure Chinese brand. The dish includes yellow, eggy noodles and simple toppings of spinach, menma, sliced negi and chashu. It’s masterfully light and deceptively subtle. Very satisfying. The shop’s gyoza also comes recommended.
Zenya is regularly ranked among the 10 best shio ramen shops in the Kanto area. Despite the remote location – all the way out in Saitama, which technically isn’t even Tokyo – the shop regularly attracts a line. Less
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- Abram Plaut added a new meal Ramen at Zen (自家製麺 然) at Zen (自家製麺 然)
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... More
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. Less
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- Abram Plaut added a new meal Ramen at Yukikaze (麺屋 雪風 すすきの本店) at Menya Yukikaze Susukino Ten (麺屋 雪風)
Recommended bowl: Late night miso
Open since 2003, this late-night Sapporo spot is one of the premier destinations for miso ramen in the Susukino area. The rich, creamy broth is made from three types of miso, pork bones, chicken, niboshi and maguro-bushi. Topped with fried potato and served with typical Sapporo-style noodles, this bowl is a late-night... More
Recommended bowl: Late night miso
Open since 2003, this late-night Sapporo spot is one of the premier destinations for miso ramen in the Susukino area. The rich, creamy broth is made from three types of miso, pork bones, chicken, niboshi and maguro-bushi. Topped with fried potato and served with typical Sapporo-style noodles, this bowl is a late-night go-to for many locals and tourists alike. There are two branches but this head shop is considered the best, open every night until 3am (12am on Sundays). Less
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- Abram Plaut added a new meal Ramen at Yotsuba (四つ葉 ) at Chuka Soba Yotsuba (中華そば 四つ葉)
Recommended bowl: High-qual in the cuts
Yotsuba is one of the highest ranked ramen shops in Saitama. The master’s parents used to operate a sushi shop just next door, and the master's dad still helps out his son and serves a different type of nigiri sushi every day to go with the ramen. The soup here is a marvelous chicken and shellfish blend, served... More
Recommended bowl: High-qual in the cuts
Yotsuba is one of the highest ranked ramen shops in Saitama. The master’s parents used to operate a sushi shop just next door, and the master's dad still helps out his son and serves a different type of nigiri sushi every day to go with the ramen. The soup here is a marvelous chicken and shellfish blend, served with immaculately prepared toppings. Mazesoba and a few other bowls are on the menu — all worth trying. Less