Kazuya (Tokyo-to, Meguro-ku)

支那ソバ かづ屋
しなそば かづや
Shinasoba Kazuya

Shirunashi tantanmen: 15 / 20
(汁なし担々麺)

Wontonmen: 15 / 20
(ワンタンメン)

I had to be at Meguro station that evening, and wanted to continue my soupless-ramen comparison before leaving Tokyo. There were not many highly ranked abura soba or mazemen in the area (translate: ‘there were none’), but I could find a well respected restaurant that offered many dishes, including a soupless tantanmen. My friend ordered the specialty of the shop, their wanton ramen. As for me, it had been a while I did not have tantanmen, despite my love of this dish, so I had to try this - interestingly, it came with a side-bowl of broth.

Sauce: A spicy sauce flavored with peanuts and coriander and some spicy, sour laiu.

Noodles: The real letdown of what could have been an awesome bowl: much too soft to my taste (the Chinese influence, I guess).

Meat: As usual, a good and high-quality minced beef meat.

Toppings: There were a few bits of cashew nuts (I guess) sprinkled on the whole thing.

Soup (in the side-bowl): A very good clear broth with a strong niboshi taste.

This bowl had everything to appeal to me: I love tantanmen, I love coriander, I love niboshi broth – so how much could I love the combination of the three? Despite this, those very soft noodles really kind of ruined the harmony – with firmer noodles, it could really have deserved a 17/20. Also, I think that it might be a good idea for the cook to cut the coriander in small bits to infuse more the taste inside the dish (maybe on a side plate for those who don’t like coriander!). But anyway, this is a recommended bowl for sure.

The wantonmen was good too:

Soup: It had a weaker taste of niboshi than the side-bowl of the Shirunashi tantanmen, but it was definitely present.

Meat: A couple of bits of yakibhutan (you know, these chinese-inspired pork slices with a red edge) that did not taste anything special and were therefore quite superfluous.

Toppings: Wonton, obviously, and good ones! With a strong taste of lemongrass. Also, some soft menma with a classical taste.

As the cook explained, both broth are made by a mix of niboshi dashi (I'm not sure if it was the tare, or another soup) and torigara/tonkotsu clear soup that they mix at the last minute. The only difference between the side-bowl of the shirunashi tantanmen and the soup of the wantonmen lies in the mix – there is more niboshi dahshi in the side-bowl, obviously.

More info on ramendb.

Kokoro (Tokyo-to, Ota-ku)

麺屋 こころ
めんやこころ
Menya Kokoro

Shio Mazemen: 17 / 20
(塩まぜそば)

Continuing my soupless-ramen run, after a couple of abura soba, it was time for some mazemen. I was not far from Oookayama (yes, there are three ‘o’s), which happens to be a surprisingly rich area in high quality ramen – or maybe not that surprisingly, as it is just next to a campus of Tokyo Tech university. I chose to go to Menya Kokoro, which specializes in mazesoba. Their specialty is a spicy Taiwan mazemen, but both my stomach and my curiosity were suggesting me to turn instead to a rare shio mazemen (I had already eaten an excellent Taiwan mazemen at Marusho in Osaka).

Noodles: Thick and relatively soft - but despite my preference for firm noodles, I must admit that it fitted well with the rest of the ingredients when mixed.

Meat: A few dices of braised meat, with a lot of fat – but a deliciously, melting fat! One of the highlights of the bowl.

Toppings: Some crunchy, sesame-flavored thin slabs of menma, a little bit of katsuo-powder, some bits of nori, some negi that was also flavored with sesame, some mitsuba. You can also add  garlic.

Once mixed, this changed into a very pleasant mix. Adding laiu (spicy oil) is very much recommended. You should really mix it very thoroughly - and several times - when you are eating, as some essential ingredients like the garlic or the pepper have a tendency to fall down into the bowl (you can borrow a spoon to finish it to the last drop!). Overall, this was excellent, and very original. Next time, I won’t miss their Taiwan mazesoba.

More info on ramendb.

Menya Susuru Ni (Tokyo-to, Meguro-ku)

麺や すする 弐
めんや すする に
Meny Susuru Ni

Abura soba: 15 / 20

This low-key restaurant was conveniently located for me and had abura soba on the menu - which I was in the mood to try more, after trying the solid Abura Gumi the day before. As I arrived there, I discovered that this was not the speciality of the shop, which prides itself for its very spicy ramen and tsukemen. Whatever: abura soba I wanted, abura soba I ordered.

Noodles: Firm and a bit thicker than at Abura Gumi, very good!

Meat: A slice of lean and braised meat, quite good.

Toppings: A raw egg. Some white and green negi. Some hot bean sprout sprinkled by bonito flakes. Some thin slabs of menma, sweetish and mild (they did not have the typical taste of preserved bamboo), quite good I must say. Some dried ramen noodles, like at Junk Garage.

This experience was quite interesting: although basically all ingredients were better individually than at Abura Gumi (especially the noodles!), after mixing everything, I obtained a nice but not so remarkable mix - some ingredients (like the dry ramen) became just undetectable. However, adding the vinegar, some pepper, and especially the spicy home mix, made it much more enjoyable. Interestingly, this seems to be quite low in salt. The whole thing had a less carbonara feel than the day before, and more Asian notes thanks to the spicy mix. Towards the end, the taste of bonito became more concentrated. A good option to try abura soba if you are in the area.

More info on ramendb.

Menya Sou (Tokyo-to, Meguro-ku)

麺屋宗 -sou- (中目黒店)
めんやそう
Menya Sou

Shio ramen with ajitama: 16 / 20

One month ago, I could try Meny Sou at the Ramen Expo in Bampaku kinen koen in Osaka and had been hugely disappointed. I could not believe that their ramen would be that unremarkable, so on the first occasion I went back to Tokyo, I ran there to try it at one of the real shops. Good idea: it was WAY better.

Broth: A very good shio broth, intense in taste, with clear onion notes (there are actually bits of dried onion in the broth).

Noodles: Slightly curly, neither firm nor soft, they have an interesting texture in mouth - they get soft a bit too quick to my taste though.

Meat: A very good slice of firm, lean braised meat.

Egg: A good egg, with a very well infused white part, slightly sweet, but a bit too soft. The yolk was well cooked, gooey on the liquid side.

Toppings: A long menma with a curious jagged shape, soft and mild - but with a distinctive classical taste, infused with the broth. Some mizuna. You can also help yourself with pepper (I recommend it!) or plum vinegar (I’m less convinced by this one).

Definitely, this had nothing in common with the uninteresting broth I got at the Ramen Expo one month earlier. I really think that ramen events, although fun and sympathetic, are not the best way to discover a good ramen - except maybe for ramen with a powerful broth (my two niboshi ramen there - Katoya and Nagi - were great experiences).

Anyway, this is one of the great ramen of the capital city - I may prefer Mendokoro Ginzasa or Shirohachi, but it follows closeby. As some of the ramen blogs below have pointed, this is better than the more famous AFURI - indeed, way better.

More info on ramendb.

Other reviews: Ramenate, Ramen Walker, Ramen Adventures (for a limited edition), Ramenislove (limited edition also), Go Ramen!, Ramen Tokyo, Tokyo Family Guy.

Abura Gumi (Tokyo-to, Shinjuku-ku)

東京油組総本店 (西新宿組)
とうきょう あぶらぐみ そう ほんてん
Toukyou Abura Gumi Sou Honten

Abura soba + toppings A: 14 / 20

I wanted to eat a quick bowl somewhere in Western Shinjuku when I stumbled upon this shop of this famous abura soba branch. It had been a while that I wanted to try it, so that looked like the perfect opportunity! Especially given that I wanted to eat several ramen (or ramen-like) dishes in the next days, and abura soba, without soup, is arguably lighter than, say, a triple tonkotsu-torigara-shoyu ramen... You can order the abura soba with customed toppings, or with two sets of toppings, ‘A’ and ‘B’. I chose the former.

Sauce: Good, and as usual, you can help yourself of vinegar and layu.

Noodles: Not so firm and had very little taste by themselves - although that's not really a problem anymore once you have mixed everything.

Egg: A classical half-boiled ontama.

Meat: A few long dice of pork with a classical pork taste, nothing really remarkable.

Toppings: Some warm and crunchy menma, thin and long, not bad. Some nori stripes, and white and green negi - actually too much negi for my taste, the taste was a bit overpowering when finishing the bowl.

As you can see, no ingredient is really exceptional in itself. And yet, once you have vigorously mixed everything and added vinegar (I would not put too much of it) and layu, you get a fairly satisfying mix. I recommend adding some pepper, it is in my view essential to the success of the bowl. The egg taste is very present and I’m not optimistic on the quality of the bowl without it.

In conclusion, this is a convenient and good chain for an introduction to abura soba, before turning towards more elaborated bowls at places like Miharu or Ikaruga. As a note, it is relatively expansive though, at 720 yens for the regular bowl and 180 yens for the toppings - if you stay with the ‘regular’ size, as I always do. Oh, and a note on the counter confirmed to me that compared to ramen, you get proportionally less salt and less fat - that's quite believable in my opinion, and may be something to consider.

More info on ramendb.

Other review: Ramen Adventures. Go Ramen!

Buson (Nagano-ken, Nagano-shi)

麺屋蕪村
めんやぶそん
Menya Buson

Tsukesoba: 13 / 20
(つけそば)

Buson soba: 15 / 20
(蕪村そば)

Agosoba: 14 / 20
(あごそば)

Nagano prefecture is a pleasant place to go in winter: skiing, seeing monkey bathing in onsen, watching the snow falling... Does enjoying good ramen to the list? To have an idea about that, we went to Buson, the second most highly ranked ramen place in the prefecture on ramendb, and conveniently located near the station. We ordered the tsukesoba, the buson soba, and the agosoba. Let's start with the former.

Broth: A torigara-katsuo broth, a bit fat and simple, that did not stick enough to the noodles.

Noodles: A bit too soft. Is it because I asked them atsumori?

Meat: A few thick dices of meat with some good melting fat.

Toppings: A few mild, thick menma, most of them very firm and fibrous - too much! Lots of white negi. You can also add some mix of spices of yuzukoshio, garlic and momiji oroshi.

Soup wari: You get some chicken broth for the soup wari which changes the not so remarkable broth into an excellent, kind-of-creamy soup. This saved the bowl.

The Buson ramen was less fat than the tsukemen broth and had a more punchy and complex taste - although the soup wari of the tsukemen may have been better. The meat was thick and similar to the one in the tsukemen, and the noodles firmer.

The agosoba uses flying fish for dashi - an interesting twist, although it's difficult to taste the difference. The broth was a bit lighter, kind of intermediate between the buson ramen and a shio broth. I preferred the buson ramen though.

More info on ramendb.

Other review: Ramen Adventures.

Kagari (Tokyo-to, Chūō-ku)

銀座 篝
ぎんざ かがり
Ginza Kagari

Niboshi shoyu: 18 / 20 
(煮干醤油SOBA)

Tori paitan: 17 / 20
(鶏白湯SOBA)

Kagari… this names sounds like a beginning for me. During my Tokyo stay, nearly one year ago, when I decided to start going to the most mythical ramen of the capital city, Kagari was the first ‘big name’ I tried - and like everyone, I had been impressed by their refined tori paitan. They also serve a niboshi shoyu ramen (also available as a tsukemen) that has been regularly praised, so it was now time to try it.

Broth: No doubt, the niboshi is there, but relatively light compared to some niboshi-bombs like Nagi or Ozeki; the broth gets however more and more of the delicious niboshi-pungency as you finish it.

Noodles: A bit soft.

Meat: A good, slightly sweet, light chashu; and also a slice of red and firm roastbeef, an interesting change.

Toppings: A slice of crunchy lotus. A few bamboo shoots, fresh and slightly acid, a very nice change from the usual menma. As usual, the nori fits extremely well with the niboshi – niboshi is definitely the best broth for nori in my opinion!

A refined, subtle and beautifully crafted bowl. How does the tori paitan fare in comparison?

The broth had a wonderful smoothness and tasted a bit like a high quality mushroom soup, that you can spike with ginger and dry onions. You get a few delicate chicken slices, firm and melting, sprinkled which yuzu zest. The bamboo shoots (fresh, not menma) were good and beautiful. Noodles were a bit soft for my taste here too, although such a cooking style fits better with a tori paitan than with a niboshi broth.

It's a kind of intense experience to altenate one spoon of each broth: extreme smoothness followed by pungent punch, that’s what you call a contrast! Contrarily to many people who blogged on this, my heart lies more on the punchy side and I would elect the niboshi as the real star here, but you should try both by yourself to decide.

Oh and we also ordered the grilled rice ball of rice with mentaiko consomme and fuki miso - not bad, but not a must.

More info on ramendb.

Other reviews: Japan Times, Ramen Adventures, Ramen is love, Tokyo Pig out, Dining without borders, Japan Page, Kylie eats Japan, Go Ramen. 

Kinguemon (Osaka-shi, Chuo-ku)

金久右衛門 (道頓堀店)
きんぐえもん
Kinguemon

Naniwa Black: 16 / 20
(なにわブラック)

Osaka Black: 16 / 20
(大阪ブラック)

Black shoyu ramen: 16 / 20
(黒醤油ラーメン)

Red shoyu ramen: 15 / 20
(紅醤油ラーメン)

A symbol of Osaka, Kinguemon was the very first ramen of this blog! The visit of my family was the perfect occasion to make them discover the local 'Takaida-kei' dark shoyu and try many variants - this time at the Namba shop. I ordered the Naniwa ramen, my sister the Osaka ramen, my father the black ramen, and my mother the red ramen - in decreasing order of strength in taste. So we could really try the different flavors crescendo! But let’s review first the stronger one, the Naniwa black ramen.

Broth: The Naniwa broth is a bit special compared to the other one: you get a very simple shio broth (quite tasteless, I must say - if that's the gold ramen, I would stay clear of it!) BUT there is a big chunk of shoyu-oyster-clam-niboshi tare floating in the middle, that you can mix for getting the real deal. Delicious!

Noodles: You can chose between thin and large noodles - the former are recommended for the gold and red ramen, and the latter for the three black versions. I went with the recommendation - the large noodles were good, although not exceptional.

Meat: Some very crumbly chashu, quite pleasant.

Egg: You get a whole ajitama with a very liquid yolk - too liquid for a shoyu ramen, in my opinion. The white part was a bit too soft and not enough infused in the spice and shoyu mix.

Toppings: Some menma, quite soft and mild - not so interesting.

How did the other bowls fare?

The black ramen and Osaka ramen were very similar - even when tasting them side by side it was difficult to convince myself that the Osaka ramen was stronger. The Naniwa, in comparison, had the same shoyu strongness but a distinct additional seafood taste that slightly masked the strong pungency of all the black broths.

The red one was milder, obviously, but had some pleasant spice notes - I could swear I tasted some cinammon!

So, overall, all were very good - I slightly prefer the strong black shoyu taste than the red one, but that’s more a question of personal preference. There was little consistency in the menma cooking - very soft in the Naniwa and the shoyu black, and quite tough in the Osaka black and the red shoyu. And finally, I strongly preferred the large noodles over the thin ones - I would order the former even with the lighter version of their soup (I’ve rated all these ramen as if they had larger noodles - with thinner noodles, they would lose one point). Anyway, as you can see, all of us loved them!

More info on ramendb.

Other reviews: Friends in Ramen, Ramen Adventures, Sukimatime, Philoramen

Mengenso (Osaka-shi, Kita-ku)

麺元素
めんげんそ
Mengenso

Shio ramen: 17 / 20
(魚元素ラーメン, 塩)

Tori paitan with spicy miso : 17 / 20
(鶏元素ラーメン, 辛みそ付き)

Naka naka ramen: 17 / 20
(中々)

Naka naka ramen with ontama and seaweed: 17 / 20

Being talked to in a (good!) English by a friendly waiter when approaching a ramen restaurant is a rare experience - so when this restaurant happens to be one of the best in the area, that’s definitely something not to be missed for the non-Japanese speaker. Accompanied by my family, we sat at one of the two tables at the back of the room. We had the shio ramen, a tori paitan with a side spoon of spicy miso, and two bowls of their signature dish, the naka naka, a mix of shio and tori paitan (we ordered one of them with some added nori, and an onsen tamago replacing the regular half ajitama). But the diversity of their dishes does not stop there, they also have a shoyu tuskemen and a shoyu ramen! Let’s start with the shio:

Broth: Where most shio are too light in taste, this one has a very intense and delicious stock taste. Press the sudachi in your broth after you’ve eaten half of it to give some pleasant citrus-twist.

Noodles: Well cooked, neither firm nor soft, just a perfect middle point.

Meat: To some extent, the letdown of this otherwise perfectly crafted bowl: two slices of lean, firm pork with some taste of brine - not bad, but not remarkable either.

Egg: Half of a perfect slightly sweet ajitama: a white part strong in taste, and a firm-but-gooey yolk that is exactly what you need for a shio broth.

Toppings: The nori gave a very pleasant marine twist. You get a generous amount of sweetish menma, which had the classical mix of texture - crunchy under the teeth, and soft inside - brought to the point of perfection! A few small shrimps, chili stripes and negi.

What a delight! When finishing my bowl, the concentration of spices with the sweet menma formed an absolutely delectable mix. If you like shio ramen, you HAVE to try it, you won’t find much better broth around (although it's kind of a tie with Shiogensui - review to come!), and everything but the meat is just perfect.

Let me now say a few words about the other dishes, which have nothing to envy to this one.

The tori paitan has a shoyu tare and was obviously thicker, but not too much compared to your regular tori paitan - it was more creamy than thick. The chicken taste was not so present, but there were some pleasant bits of dry onions and a generous amount of pepper. The spicy miso was excellent and it was good to have it on the side, so that you can decide how much you want to add. A hearthy (but not overwhelming) winter dish.

The naka naka, which is a mix of the shio and the tori paitan, was, well, intermediate in taste. A bit creamy, with a beautiful variety of flavors.

If you choose to take the runny onama rather than the hard ajitama, you can mix it in the soup, which becomes then nicely thicker.

All these variants are excellent in their own way and I honestly cannot chose one over the others. I would just recommend, if you don’t mind spicyiness, to pay the additional twenty yen to get the spicy miso side spoon (in case you take the naka naka or tori paitan) - you can then try it and chose whether you want to add some or not. Interestingly, since the naka naka is a mix between a tori paitan with shoyu tare and a shio ramen, if you order it with the spicy miso spoon, you will then get a rare example of a spicy shio-shoyu-tori paitan-miso ramen! Try to make sense of the traditional four categories of ramen after that... Will a shop go further and add some niboshi and tonkotsu to the mix?

More info on ramendb.

Other reviews: Friends in Ramen

Kirari (Kyōto-shi, Fushimi-ku)

つけ麺 きらり
つけめん きらり
Tsukemen Kirari

Shio-ton Ramen: 18 / 20
(塩とんらぁめん)

We were supposed to meet with my family in Kyoto's southern Fushimi area for a sake-trip, but they were delayed and I was hungry, so I waited at a nearby ramen-place which looked good. Gosh, what a great idea! This shop specializes in tsukemen, but I was more in a ramen mood, and wanted to try their rare shio-tonkotsu ramen - which I ordered with some additional nori.

Broth: A very thick but delicious broth of tonkotsu - one can actually feel the texture of bone grains at times - with some veggie aftertaste. It sticks so much to the nooodles that it felt like a tsukemen!

Noodles: Slightly soft, but well, we are in Kyoto. I must admit that this fitted well with the broth.

Meat: A few delicious slices of peppery, delicious chashu that kind of tasted like roastbeef.

Egg: Half an egg is included in the regular ramen, so it’s not necessary to order any more. And I must say that this egg is a model, with its melting yolk (but hard enough not to fall into the soup), and a white part infused with strong flavors.

Toppings: Some fibrous menma, with a mild but good taste - more similar to fresh bamboo than to preserved one. The nori sheets I ordered fitted extremely well with the broth and the meat. There were even some fresh garlic you could crush inside the broth.

This is the best Kyoto-style ramen I ever ate - actually, there are many twists compared to the classical Kyoto-style bowl so I'm not sure I could categorize it as such. It was a bit similar to Gokkei in Ichijoji, but whereas the latter was too thick for me, this one just had the highest level of thickness I can stand. It stayed hot quite long, a perfect winter dish that keeps you going.

Delicious, and if I was more into Kyoto ramen, I could have given it a 19 or maybe even a 20: this is flawless ramen - like Takakura Nijo, although in a very different style. Kyoto, home of ramen perfection?

More info on ramendb.