Ramen #1 - 久留米らーめん 金丸
This hearty bowl of tonkotsu ramen was found just down the street from my hotel. I got into Tokyo at 6am after an overnight flight and was tired and dehydrated and feeling like crap. After a very light sushi breakfast at Tsukiji fish market, I was in need of something substantial for lunch and I was not disappointed. The soup was richer than tonkotsu ramen I'd had before (I can see now that these were all just poor imitations). The ramen egg was on point and the yolk perfectly gooey. This ramen had regular sliced chashu pork, but also some chunky chashu (like red-braised pork), which was oh so fatty and velvety. The noodles were thinner than I was expecting, but perfectly cooked and a great vehicle for delivering the pork fat to my stomach. This totally hit the spot and was probably my second favourite bowl of ramen on this trip. Click here for more pictures.
Ramen #2 - Gottsu (Akihabara)
This was another bowl of deliciously greasy and fattening tonkotsu ramen. It was great having all the spring onions on top to cut through the richness of the soup. It did have a shit ton of bean sprouts in it as well, but you know, I can't knock a place for my own personal vegetable preferences. Raw bean sprouts are actually a little less offensive than the cooked stuff, so my strategy was just to eat all the bean sprouts before they reached the limp semi-cooked stage. I got a combo, so the ramen came with rice and some dumplings. This was way too much food, but I ate it all anyway. I had been intending on getting some ballpark food at the Giants game, but there was no way I was eating anything for the rest of the day.
Ramen #3 - Not sure
This was a bowl spicy pork tsukemen ramen I got from another place that was near my hotel, which doesn't seem to appear on Google map. I really appreciated the fatty pork in the dipping sauce. The flavour was suitably intense and the sauce coated the noodles well. It lacked a little depth of flavour compared with the Rokurinsha ramen in entry #9, but was still quite delicious.
Ramen #4 - Kizo
This was the first ramen I got from Tokyo train station's ramen street. This is a shio ramen with beef tongue and lots of spring onions. The beef was good and the soup was clean and light. The wood ear mushrooms were a nice touch, and the spring onions added a bit of body to the otherwise mildly-flavoured soup. My only complaint was the ramen eggs being over-cooked, as you can see from the solid yolks in the picture. Shio is probably my least favourite ramen soup flavour, so I did end up dumping a bunch of chilli flakes into the soup to increase the flavour a bit.
Ramen #5 - Harukiya
I had a bit of a wait between checking out of the hotel I stayed in Ginza and the one I would be staying at in Shinjuku. I decided to ride the Marunouchi line until Ogikubo (which is apparently famous for ramen) and try something there. I found one of the most highly regarded places and joined the queue outside. There were maybe 5-6 people in front of me, which is manageable (the Rokurinsha queues were more like 15-20 people).
This is a Chuka (Chinese) shoyu ramen, and it was pretty epic. The soup tasted like Foochow chicken noodle soup when you add just the right amount of soy sauce. There was quite a substantial amount of umami there. The bamboo was top-notch as well, I wish I'd got more of that. The pork was tasty, despite being quite lean. The noodles were thicker than average and felt more homemade. Overall, a fantastic bowl of ramen. Check out this blog for more details on this place.
Ramen #6 - Senmon Hirugao
This bowl of shio ramen is another one from Tokyo train station's ramen street. This was nice enough, but probably the ramen I enjoyed the least on my trip. This one was more seafoody than the previous bowl of shio ramen I had. If you look closely you can see a small prawn on one of the ramen eggs. I didn't eat that. The wontons were decent. Yeah, I have to admit that I dumped a bit of soy sauce into the soup to make it a little more savory.
Ramen #7 - 九州らーめん 艶まる
I got this ramen in Nakano, after visiting the Nakano Broadway mall. I'd been walking round for ages trying to figure out what to eat, when I just decided to duck into the next place that looked like it served tonkotsu ramen. Click here for pictures.
This also had the chashu pork cut into chunks rather than slices. My god I love that pork. I will have to experiment adding it to my own ramen. Overall it was very nice, I just love tonkotsu ramen, so this was always going to delight.
Ramen #8 - Oreshiki Jun
This is the third bowl of ramen I got from Tokyo train station. After the usual check to see if the Rokurinsha line was not insanely long (it was insanely long), I joined the relatively short queue for this place. I got the tonkotsu ramen with all the toppings. This was a slight mistake as I got some blocky pink thing that made me want to hurl as soon as I bit in to it. I am not sure what it was, but it was slightly seafoody and had a gross texture. I managed to force it down with bean sprout chasers. Yeah, you know it is bad when you end up eating something you hate to dilute the taste. I figured I'd get all the unpleasant stuff out of the way first. The rest of meal was impeccable, but I would still rate it below the other tonkotsu ramens I had. Perhaps the worst 2 minutes of my trip to Tokyo contributed to this relatively low ranking for a place that has a big reputation.
Ramen #9 - Rokurinsha (Haneda Airport)
Okay, so I finally had some Rokurinsha ramen. No, I did not have the patience to wait in a queue for ages to get the good stuff at Tokyo station. However, even the not as good version at Haneda airport was still mind-blowing, and the best ramen I had on my trip.
My expectations were fairly low, because after all, this is airport food court food. Airport food court food is usually not all that. This was all that. The dipping sauce was intense. It was seafoody in the good seafood way. The seafood that brings the extreme umami. It almost tasted like there was some citrus in the soup. I did a little googling and this blog has more about Rokurinsha at Haneda and has a better explanation of tsukemen and some nicer pictures.
Next time I go to Tokyo, I am going to queue up. This ramen is worth waiting for.
My learnings and final thoughts
Ramen in Tokyo is amazing. All the ramen I had was very good, even the ones I didn't like as much. The noodles were always perfectly cooked and the soup was always wonderfully flavourful (for the type of soup it was). I hope to go back someday and (if my cholesterol allows) eat many more bowls of tonkotsu and tsukemen ramen.
