A high and low of the same thing

2 different places, 2 different standards of qualities

As I like to start things off on a high note (in lieu of a slow start and happy ending), first up we have Chuka Soba Fuji-san Ya, located just outside JR Okayama Station. As the name suggests, they specialize in chuka soba, a thin-noodles variety of ramen that was basically adapted from traditional Chinese noodles. I got a big bowl with extra meat to compensate for the long day of walking around that I had just finished at that point. The place has really good reviews, and it did not disappoint. Fuji-san Ya utilizes a shoyu-based broth to go with their thin egg noodles and shoyu-marinated pork belly chashu. Right from the start I was impressed with the depth of their soup, and the good impression only went up after each slurp. The chashu was fatty but not too overwhelming, so it it went perfectly well with the soup and noodles. One could tell from eating this noodles that the place has been in the ramen game for a long while, and their experience is top-notch.

Next up, another chuka soba place located a few blocks from my apartment, 丹心. I got their miso chasu ramen, and was subsequently disappointed by it. Even though it was the extra-meat option, the volume still didn’t bring that fill-you-up vibe that I normally look for in a ramen. In fact, the bowl looked quite humble in size. To make it worse, the taste was generic and unassuming, with no strong point or focus in flavor. Judging by their location and opening hours, I had a hunch that this place was mostly set up for drunk people to stop by after midnight and get their share of drunk ramen. Maybe I’ll come back next time when I’m in that condition, heh.

Ramen around the block

Sometimes, a good serving of ramen is only right around the corner.

First up, Kuradashi Jōzō Miso Ramen Enmaru, just a few steps from the Aeon Mall I usually pick up my groceries at. Quite a grandiose name ain’t it? And this is their flagship ramen: a thick-sliced stewed pork miso ramen with egg. One look at that bowl is all you need to take before diving in to the rich miso broth, flavorful pork chashu (very nicely stewed, even though it was a thick cut), and marinated egg. The volume was just at the right amount, as I managed to finish the meat and egg at around the same pace as I did with the noodles. With this one, it did get a little bit too heavy towards the end for me, so a splash of vinegar was called for, which lifted some of the richness of the soup and made it easier for me to slurp it. I’ll give the egg a pass because even though it’s not my favorite style, they did a sweet job marinating it regardless. Overall, a great cost-performance ramen, worth the price and the mantle of “flagship ramen”.

Next up is Itō Shōten, a few minutes down the road from my apartment, and their Yellow Onion Chūka Soba. This place only serves lunch, which I found a bit arrogant (basically saying “we make enough banks to justify not serving dinner), but well…they can walk the walk. It was a simple shio ramen, but boy was it well made. I often think that shio ramen gets the short end of the stick when it comes to popularity. It’s usually not as Japanese as shoyu or tonkotsu, and people underestimate the effort put into it because the name implies simplicity (just putting salt into the broth I guess? XD). Anyway, I believe that it takes a lot of work to make a simple concept into something that warrants you enough income to open only half a day. This ramen had a deep, yet elegant, saltiness in the broth that came from careful seasoning and filtering. The chashu was also handled with great care, it didn’t give much resistance against me biting down. The onion may look a bit overwhelming, but turned out to be very mild in taste, and didn’t interfere much with the flavor dynamic except giving a slight sweetness and a nice crunchiness. This was one of the few times I was really impressed with how they “build” the ramen. It stems from a seemingly basic structure, but with outstanding end result.

Big egg, small egg

Despite what your S.O tells you reassuringly, sometimes, uhh…size does matter

First up, Housenka Ramen, located just off the main road from…well, Kabukicho in Shinjuku. Before y’all pervs think I was around that neighborhood for some sketchy business, I went there specifically for this place. I was intrigued by its name first and foremost, it’s just a name of a flower (鳳仙花) but it sounds really cool if you know the kanji (鳳 for “phoenix” and 仙 for “sage”/”fairy”). Anyway, I got to Housenka fairly early for dinner time, but the place was already filled, and a handful of people were lining outside: a good sign of things to come. With ramen places, however, you never have to worry being in line for too long unless it’s got a Michelin star on the door. I’ve never stopped being amazed at how fast Japanese people eat their ramen, and I thought I was already on the fast side of eating if and when I eat alone. They also allow guests to purchase the order ticket while waiting in line, so when you’re seated it only takes a couple more minutes before your ramen gets to you. Anyhow, I was studying the menu on the door before getting in to buy the tickets, and decided to settle for their Special Ramen, basically all available toppings. There aren’t many choices to choose from, either. Housenka specializes in Shio Ramen with the fish stock broth, and that’s basically it.

Before long, I finally got in after some people had finished their dinner. The special ramen looks pretty colorful from the start. I really like how they manage to make the colors “pop” right from the get go with nice contrast. The visual impact was then followed nicely by the incredible depth of flavor of the soup. Usually, fish is not something you would go for if you want a lot of sweet umami for your stock, but this one would give any pork or chicken broth a run for their money. They also pair it with non-marinated ham chashu to lighten up the flavor profile a little bit, which is nice. I was somewhat taken aback by the onion, but it didn’t sneak up on my palate so no harm done there. The bamboo shoots could have been cut a bit shorter for the sake of convenience, but the crunchiness gave a nice kick to lift up the soft chashu. Last but not least, the soft-boiled egg. The moment you take a bite and the yolk pours out perfectly, then you mix it with the awesome soup is just…*chef’s kiss*. In short, a solid 9/10

Next up, with the small quail egg topping (very unique in its own right), is Yokohama Kakei Ramen, located just outside of Ueno Station. They’re a tonkotsu ramen store, and I was not in the mood for anything too heavy that day, so I went for shio tonkotsu (rather than shoyu tonkotsu, which probably would have put my half-asleep appetite into overdrive). Welp, just by looking at it, you can tell that they certainly did not disappoint in the protein department. Nicely charred chashu, but the fat/meat ratio was a little bit imbalance for me. The broth was tonkotsu alright, but I felt like it was more salty due to seasoning, rather than having strong umami from a ton of pork bone. Other than the quail egg, there’s not much to write home about this one. I also got a serving of rice because it was on the house, but the rice turned out to be kinda dried because it probably had sat in the cooker for a couple of days, so I hastily chomped down half of it and promptly gave up. All in all, quite a disappointment with this one.

“Wow, I’ve never seen that before” ramen

Ok, so, when you try to be unorthodox with anything in life, there are two ways it could end up being: it’s quirky in a fun way, or it’s weird in a not-so-good way.

To start on a positive note, we have Ramen Kai (located a good 10-15 minutes walk from Asakusa) and their shio ramen variation. I ordered chashu men, meaning I was gonna get some extra meat, but I didn’t expect them to provide me with two different types of chashu. Score! The pinky ham-looking one is more unconventional, as one would expect. It had a slight smoky taste but paired well with the salty broth. The usual chashu was more flavorful, a sign of being well-seared and well-marinated. Their choice of topping was also quite unusual, with bamboo shoot and green veggies. I’ve seen plenty of bamboo in my ramen, but not everyday do you get to see that hard part near the root gets used like that. They cooked it down enough to be soft, but still allowed the bamboo to retain some crunchiness. The noodles were curly and springy, and played a part in creating a sense of harmony in texture between chewy/crunchy and soft/smooth. I had a blast eating this one.

Next up, we have Kitakata Ramen, a somewhat popular ramen chain. If you’re wondering why I took a photo of the menu instead of an actual bowl of ramen, it’s because they had signs inside they said “no photos with camera or phone”. I thought it was kinda weird, since that would basically prevent people from spreading the words about their quality (or lack thereof), but I wasn’t gonna mess with the people who were about to serve me my dinner, so I compromised. This was later proven to be b.s, as another guy soon settled down on the stool next to me, and proceeded to shamelessly take a photo with his phone regardless. So much for being a courteous customer lol. Anyway, I had their wonton ramen, which was absolutely delicious in all aspects. It was just a really well made bowl of ramen with great noodles, great broth, great chashu, and great wonton. And they didn’t skimp on the wonton, either. I had a solid 4 or 5 decent-size balls of wonton in my ramen, to go with another 4-5 cuts of chashu. The broth did get somewhat monotonous towards the end when my palate had adapted to it, but the process of enjoying this one was still quite nice. Even though the style heavily resembles Chinese noodles, if they call themselves a ramen chain then I’m not gonna argue with that anytime soon.

New neighborhood ramen

Luckily for me, there are some great ramen places around the apartment I moved in a couple of months ago. It took a while to get going, but I’ve finally been able to explore these shops.

Located right across the street from my apartment is Menya Yūta, a “specialized shop” focusing on tanmen, a variety of ramen with stir-fried toppings. The flagship ramen of Yūta is their grilled chicken tanmen, which I took a bite out of before realizing I had not taken a picture and had to hastily put everything back to almost where I found them. With stir-fried toppings, there’s a lot of freedom to play around with. They had cabbage and bean sprouts as the foundation, and a surprising touch of paprika to boost. The soup was quite thicker than your average ramen broth, but that was also to be expected. Grilled chicken was perfectly seared and flavorful. Yūta uses a thick egg noodles strain of ramen for their recipe, and it provides a hefty bite to go with the aggressively-seasoned stir-fried veggies and grilled chicken. It differed a lot from my mental image, but I had a blast trying this one out, because it was delicious in an unconventional way. According to Google Reviews, it seems like a lot of people would agree with that sentiment as well

A few blocks down the road, there’s Ramen “Workshop” Ajishimaya, a ramen shop with a seaside background, judging from the name and posters inside. Their signature ramen is an uni miso ramen that looks like above. Aesthetics aside, the uni miso broth ended up being the only saving grace of this ramen. The ground meat got overwhelmed by the thick miso soup and didn’t add anything to the flavor profile. The onion clashed with the soup instead of lifting it, and I’m not really a big fan of eating that much raw onion in my ramen. The noodles didn’t leave any special impression either. I was a little disappointed because the presentation was so grand, but the execution left a lot to be desired.

New Year’s Ramen

Despite this being from 3 months back, the backlog isn’t that long, trust me lol

Lately I’m slowing down the updates due to the facts that I haven’t progressed much further in my ramen “research”. Being chipped away by the unforgiving grind of a 9-5 job at a gray Japanese company ain’t that fun, let me tell ya.

Anyhow, first up today is 一天門, which…uhhh…roughly translates as “One Heavenly Gate”, I guess ? I was walking around the KIX airport looking for some food option and, as a matter of course, settled on the ramen store in the food court. Apparently their main store is in Hakata (Fukuoka), so I got my hopes up and walked in. Given the size of the bowl, my first impression wasn’t very positive. However, just one slurp of the soup and noodles was enough to recognize that this was, in fact, a very well made ramen. It got some influence from Chinese-style noodles, which I think is quite normal for ramen from the Fukuoka region, with the thin strain of noodles and an abundance of spring onions as topping. This was not tonkotsu ramen, so the broth doesn’t have that typical milky color, but it was delicioius regardless. The focus point was the pinch of spicy sauce on top, which added a sharp kick to the flavor profile, and kept the soup from being overly sweet. The chashu, although cut paper-thin, was enjoyable and did not feel out of place with the other ingredients. I finished the bowl wanting for more, which is always a good sign.

Speaking of which, I did end up going to a tonkotsu ramen place later on, but in Kobe instead of Hakata. This is Gashoken, a small but well-established ramen chain (judging by their website) in Hyogo. The more I look at this photo, the more I realize the gazillion things that are out of place: the finished Coca Cola bottler (not mine), a tiny bit of my finger in the frame, and the hand spray on the right. However, the focus remains on the very upbeat looking bowl placed in front of me, their white (standard?) tonkotsu ramen. I will admit I had a somewhat difficult time eating the nori, both because it was too big, and because I didn’t want to ruin it. The ramen was uneventful, but the chashu was cooked well with smooth texture and taste. Given that tonkotsu ramen seemingly requires some extra efforts just to get it right, “uneventful” is already a high level of mastery in my book. At worst, it could have been a bland and underwhelming tonkotsu broth, and no one wants that.

Last, but definitely not least, Franken Ramen, located inside a shopping dori somewhere in Osaka. They specialize in shoyu ramen, as you can see. I didn’t have high expectation for this place, seeing as it was just an ordinary looking ramen place in an ordinary looking part of town, but I’m glad I was wrong. Their dark soy sauce broth was packed with flavor, which paired well with the soft and light chashu. There was plenty of meat to spare, but unfortunately they didn’t do kaedama, so I had to finish the last few pieces of chashu by themselves. The soup did get a little bit salty once my palate got used to it, but it wasn’t overbearing so I gave it a pass. Another plus was that everyone working in there was giving off a very energetic vibe, even though it was already late at night when I stopped by for dinner. It was great seeing a group of people getting really into making and serving good ramen, even amidst the current situation.

Volume Ramen

Welp, unexpected long break due to me getting pseudo-forced to move to a new apartment and not have Internet ready for like 2 weeks, but I’m back online and ready to spread some more ramen love.

In yet another stroke of good ramen luck, I struck gold on this one while looking for a lunch option with my senpai during one of our outdoor sales sessions. This was 大王 (Dai-Ou), located in the middle of exactly nowhere, I really can’t remember the location that well because it was a very unassuming little house on an old street of a small town. That aside, however, when I ordered the chashu tanmen, they served up one of the most stomach-fulfilling bowls of ramen I’ve ever had. Dai-Ou is run by an elderly couple in their 70s, and I guess they really want to look after us youngsters with their ramen, because the serving size was uncharacteristically big for Japan. The broth is miso-based, with a lot of vegetables mixed in, so it was a deep yet elegant flavor, not too overwhelming like a pork bone based broth. One small minus point was the fact that the seasoning was somewhat aggressive, but most of the customer base during lucnh time was physical labor workers (road construction and so on) so I think they would appreciate the extra salt. Their chashu was a bit dry in some of the leaner pieces, but still tasted pretty good, all things considered. They actually gave a lot of extra meat for the chashu ramen, I was genuinely surprised when I got down to 3/4 of the bowl and still hadn’t finished all of it. Their noodles was passable, just decent enough to not weigh down the quality of ramen. Overall, a plentiful and enjoyable ramen experience.

The second batter today is Ramen Takahashi – Ueno branch, with a Winter limited edition Miso Ramen. Topped with some saffron and spicy miso paste, this was a rich and bold ramen that emits a vibe of “go big or go home”. The green onion and menma were both cut quite thick, as well as the chashu, so there was more than enough to go around with the noodles. I only put half the spicy miso down to the broth, but it felt like I could have go for all of it, given that it wasn’t painstakingly hot. The broth had quite a strong hint of sweetness from all the onion, but it somewhat helped offsetting the heaviness of the spicy miso paste so no harm done there. A solid option for lunch on a cold, chilly winter day. I was also intrigued by the salt-based broth pork roast rice bowl, so I got one for myself, and it didn’t disappoint either. Perfect level of saltiness to accompany the thinly-sliced pork, which proved to be a perfect match for the rice, too.

Unexpected Ramen

Welp, sometimes I don’t find the ramen, the ramen finds me

I had a couple of hours to kill in Utsunomiya (Tochigi Prefecture), so I decided to walk around the train station to find a place for lunch. Unfortunately, everything was either closed temporarily or permanently due to COVID, so there weren’t many choices. Eventually I had to settle for Orion Gyoza, which specializes in, yes you guessed it, gyoza. However, you don’t build a successful restaurant chain on the back of only gyoza, so of course they also do ramen. At this point I haven’t had any good tonkotsu ramen for a while, and decided to go with the tonkotsu shoyu ramen with a chashu rice bowl. In hindsight, I should’ve chosen the gyoza set, but I wasn’t sure if I could handle ALL the carbs. Anyway, out came the ramen, and I was predictably disappointed by that one lonely piece of chashu on top, but knowing I have the rice bowl to fall back on, it didn’t damper my mood (and appetite) that much. Considering this was at a gyoza chain, they actually put out a pretty decent, if not borderline great, tonkotsu ramen. Really rich broth with depth of flavor, well-marinated chashu, and soft-boiled egg made up a strong above average ramen at Orion. Eventually I ate some of the chashu from the rice bowl with the ramen as well, since there was so much meat in there. Surprisingly, I kept finding more and more meat underneath, and eventually had to drag myself over the finish line, something I rarely have to do when eating ramen. Solid lunch option if you ever find yourself in Utsunomiya.

The star of today’s blog post, however, is this beautiful motherf*cker right here. A creation of Aji no Sapporo Oonishi in Aomori Prefecture, their signature Miso Curry Milk Ramen with butter topping. If you’re not already overwhelmed by the name, you will be by the time you’re actively engaging in the act of slurping down that rich, creamy miso broth with a strong hint of sweet curry taste and the silkiness of milk. Once you have fully appreciated those 3 layers of flavors, it’s time to kick it up a notch by allowing the butter to melt into the soup, adding yet another layer to the mix. In case you haven’t already figured it out, butter makes everything better, even a bowl of Miso Curry Milk Ramen. To be fair, the noodles and chashu ain’t nothing to write home about, but this is a case where the soup carried 90% of the entire ramen, and it really was something that is greater than the sum of its parts. I rarely find enough space to consume all of the broth, but it would be a waste to not down all of this liquid gold, so I kanpai-ed that stuff all the way down, and left as a happy man. 10/10, would repeat again (but this place is all the way up in Aomori, and I really don’t see any other reason why I would go back to that sad, cold, outdated prefecture).

Mistake in judgement

Surprisingly, it took more than 50 tries for me to finally run into a ramen that I actually hate. Not because it was done in a half-ass way, but actually vice versa

With that being said, today we have Men-Omoto, a small ramen shop tucked inside a small alleyway just a few meters away from the big street. For all the wrong reasons, I got their niboshi ramen, which was a tonkotsu base with an unhealthy dose of dried sardines (niboshi) essence in the broth. In hindsight, the color of that soup should have been a huge red flag, but I was in my adventurous mode and dug in without hesitation. The first couple of chopsticks wasn’t that bad, the tonkotsu broth was highlighted with aggressive seasonings, and the thick noodles accompanied it rather nicely. The real horror, though, came when the sardine’s taste started to catch up, and it overwhelmed my palate in no time. It was standard for the first few bites, then there was a certain point where the sardine just kinda poked its ugly head up and declared a coup-de-grace in terms of flavor, and from then on all I could pick up with my tongue was the fishy, slightly bitter note of those damn sardines. The imbalance ratio between noodles and topping certainly didn’t help offsetting the unpleasant fishiness. Half way through the bowl, I was stuck with just noodles and soup, there was nothing left to distract my sense of taste from the relentless attack of sardines…

They say there’s a first time for everything, and my ramen luck finally ran out when I stepped through the door of Omoto. I did manage to finish it eventually, but it took more mental prowess than I ever could have imagined. Me and my grumpy face left with a full stomach and a strong determination to never order “niboshi ___” anything ever again

Ramen at work (p.2)

For the second installment of “ramen at work”, we have Chashu Miso Ramen from Miso…uhh, Bei? Be-e? The kanji is 兵衛 for anyone out there who can read it, but my senpai said it’s Miso Bei, so I’m gonna go with that. True to the name, this place specializes in miso ramen, and also offers a mean combo for lunch (ramen + gyoza + rice). I noticed that their chashu miso ramen is the same price as a normal miso ramen plus an extra order of chashu, so I’m not sure why they had to make a separate menu item for that lol. Anyway, the ramen came out looking nice and pretty with all the chashu standing up around the brim of the bowl, and a simple mound of toppings in the middle. The chashu was 90% lean from what I can remember (and the photo), so it was a little bit dry for my taste, but if you’re a hungry salaryman then quantity over quality. On the other hand, the broth was done well, with appropriate depth of flavor and not-too-much garlic mixed in. Their noodles didn’t give much of an impression so I’m just leaving it as “no comment”. I was also given a couple of their gyoza from my senpai to try, and I was stuffed by the end of it all. I’m not really a big fan, but gotta admit these carbs on carbs on carbs ramen combos are really the backbone of lunch cuisine in Japan lol