Using the Supleks Ramen Database

The Supleks Ramen Database is the largest and most comprehensive guide to ramen shops in Japan. Unfortunately, like many web sites of its type here, it is only in Japanese and therefore is inaccessible to non-Japanese speakers. Until now that is - we have published a simple English language guide to using the famed Supleks Ramen Database. Using the Supleks page and this guide, non-English speaking visitors or residents of Japan should be able to locate good ramen shops in Tokyo (and elsewhere in Japan).

Using the Supleks Ramen Database at RamenTokyo.com

Misomaru/Ebisu味噌丸/恵比寿

 



UPDATE 2009-05-18: This MisoMaru has been replaced by a branch of Mita Seimen Sho. This is now the second tonkotsu gyoukai shop in the Ebisu-Meguro area, third if you count Ippudo's new tsukemen.

On Komazawa-dori in Ebisu, a couple of stores and one streetlight after the Starbucks on the left side, going towards NakaMeguro, you will find MisoMaru Ramen. It bills itself as a miso ramen "senmon ten" (専門店, expert store). If you are into miso ramen specifically you might want to check it out the next time you are in the Ebisu neighboorhood. The miso broth was quite assari for miso broth but had a very rich taste with a lot of onions and sesame in it. The noodles had a giant heap of thinly cut onions on top, be sure to ask if you don't want them. The pork was the stringy rolled type so I didn't get any of it but the noodles are very good here, and you can get them in various sizes for different prices (700-900 yen) and with a large amount of toppings if you like. It looks like they have a lot of steady customers based on the conversations that were going on between some of them and the three very efficient older guys behind the counter. The menu has a fair number of other items on it including gyoza. Note that if, on the street you cross before getting to Motomaru, you make a left at the light instead of going straight, then a branch of the excellent Yotteko-ya (a yellow shop with black wood panelling on the outside) will be on the right-hand side of the street, about another 1 minute walk up the hill (going south, back towards Ebisu Garden Place).

URach92 review
Tabelog review
Diddlefinger Map (English labels)
Google Map

Jintan/Rokakkubashi仁鍛/六角橋

   

Better than Rokurinsha. Outstanding. This place has the same Rokurinsha taste, but even more richness and flavor. It should, it was started by a ramen chef Kuriyama-san who worked at Rokurinsha (and Jinenjo) for a while. Very thick noodles done perfectly, and the soup tastes just like Rokurinsha but seemingly like some more oil and salt was added, an even stronger コク taste. Note the very generous amount of pork that was provided for 300 yen (on top of the base 800 yen for standard-size noodles). Noodles are available hot or cold, as is regular chuka soba ramen (slightly smaller noodles are used in this case). To be sure, very few people come here for the ramen. Both omori (I guess around 250) and a larger size than that are available, for 100yen and 200yen respectively. My only quibble with the food itself is that the pork tasted (and looked) just a bit like ham, it had that salty, slightly more raw and pink texture. You will also get 1/2 an egg with it. This is the first place I have seen also that admits that the sharp-pointed no-texture plastic chopsticks are useless for picking up wet tsukemen noodles, so they actually have both the plastic ones (I guess for people who are ecologically minded) and the wooden ones. Note that they also have omiyage (お土産) tsukemen for take-out (you have to cook it at home), 1600 yen for two portions. Bowls, counters, everything looks a lot like Rokurinsha. No ticket machine, they will come out to take your order while you are on line, they will have a little copy of the menu with them. After you are done eating you will pay in the back at the Dutch door. About 10 people on line when I got there at 12:30 on a Saturday. Open until 7, no break, or until the soup runs out. Closed Tuesdays. Excellent, I now recommend this place over Rokurinsha, for people who are willing to make the longer trip, especially since this place has a much smaller line.

Supleks Page
One Coin Blog Page (much better pics)
Address: 日本神奈川県横浜市神奈川区六角橋1-17-29
Google Map

Tsukemen at Ippudo/Ebisu一風堂/恵比寿

  

Wonder of wonders - Ippudo now has tsukemen, at least the one in Ebisu does. What they call Hakata Tsukemen is really just tonkotsu gyoukai. But it was quite good. The default noodle size is 200g and you can get omori 300g for +100yen. Takes 8-10 minutes to cook as the waitstaff will remind you. The taste of the broth was quite like Ryoga in Ookayama, Dai Dai in Jiyugaoka or Matchbo in Shibuya. Very strong age-ninniku and onions taste. Quite good but a touch gritty as you get to the bottom, unless you keep stirring it up. Small chopped up bits of pork, menma and onions. The Ebisu/Meguro area now has another option for tonkotsu gyoukai. Remains to be seen if this is a summer-only thing or not, the below web site says another 6 months.

Read more about it on the Ippudo "What's New" site here.

Home Page
Ebisu Shop Page + Address
Diddlefinger Map (English labels)
Google Map

Ippo/Sotokandaつけめん専門店 一歩/外神田

 

Decent noodles, decent pork, decent broth, very crowded, very tight seats. Bathrooms in the back. They don't really seem to specialize in anything despite the name since they have a lot of stuff on the menu, including spicy tsukemen, shio and miso. North from Akihabara station, on the south side of Kuramaebashi-dori, near Suehirocho station. Portions from 200-400g all 730 yen. Closed Wednesdays.

Supleks Page
Diddlefinger Map (English labels)
Google Map

Ganso Ebisu Ramen/Asakusa元祖恵比寿ラーメン/浅草

For good pictures of Ganso Ebisu Ramen click here.

Ganso Ebisu Ramen is actually not in Ebisu, it is in Sensoku in Taito-ku, about 5-10 mins walk directly north from Asakusa Station on the Tsukuba Express line from Akihabara. I managed to forget my keitai this time so that's why there are no pictures. A distinctive red wall and door make up the front of this ramen shop on Asakusa-dori. Inside, this place appears to have been visited by a number of popular world soccer stars including Pele - the walls have a large number of soccer pennants, shirts, autographed pictures and calendars hanging from them. They have a menu in both English and Japanese, I wonder if they get a lot of foreigners due to the mention on worldramen.net. The soup for my chashumen was a clear shoyu broth, satisfying on a cold rainy day. They will ask you also if you want free rice with it ("gohan sahbisu?") Just a slight layer of oil on top. A very generous amount of longer-than-average menmas were on top. The chashu itself and the noodles were plain. The staff was fairly friendly. At the link below you can read the story of this shop and the owner. The worldramen page that appears to have been written in 2001 is obviously a bit dated - they no longer have a ticket machine. You can get here quite easily from Kaminarimon Shrine, just walk west from the shrine until you get to Asakusa-dori, then walk north.

Shop Worldramen.net page (old)
Tableog page (good pics)
Diddlefinger Map (English labels)
Google Map

Ginshirou/Kamata銀四郎/鎌田

 

Another day, another Rokurinsha clone. This one finds us on the 6th floor of the Higashi Kan of the GRANDUO building in Kamata, part of JR Kamata station, not Tokyu Kamata station. We went to Kamata today to stop by Indo Bazaar. This may well become our favorite Indian grocery (for non-perishables anyway, since it is a bit far from where we live), it is small but well-stocked and the proprietor is very helpful and friendly. In any case whilst the wife was busy shopping somewhere I sneaked off to see what this place had to offer. The noodles in this shop seem to be just a bit thicker than other Rokurinsha/Tetsu clones and took about 10 mins to cook. Overall same basic taste, slightly less thickness, they could probably throw in a few more onions and menmas but this was OK for a restaurant-floor ramen shop, actually not bad since it is 55 on Supleks. As I have mentioned before in other posts, the Kamata area is well-stocked for good ramen shops, including Shinka and a branch of Ramen Dai. Worth it if you are in the area.

Shop home page
Diddlefinger Map (English labels)
Google Map

Mita Seimen Sho/Shinjuku三田製麺所/新宿

 

Picture of outside of shop

Technically this one is in Kabukicho but I am going to list it in Shinjuku, just be aware of where it is, if you are not familar with Kabukicho then look it up on Wikipedia first. This is the Shinjuku branch of the previously reviewed Mita Seimen, (the other branch is in Mita, Minato-ku), and is almost an exact clone in every respect. This is another shop that is capitalizing on the now not-so-recent boom of tonkotsu gyoukai-based broth places, most famously Rokurinsha and Tetsu. The chashu was cold (but not rolled, instead the cut type sliced from a larger slab, decent fat-to-meat ratio) but actually pretty good after you warmed it up in the broth, which was almost an exact clone of Tetsu's broth in my opinion. A good balance of flavor and texture, not too watery or salty, the very slightest hint of sweetness. This is good because this place does not have much of a line (yet) - if you are craving the Tetsu or Rokurinsha broth taste but don't want to wait, then come here. The noodles were very mochi-mochi, well-cooked and a generous portion, you can see the menu above. They even have a white lantern hanging out front just like Rokurinsha. This one has a ticket machine when you walk in. I recommend this place since it basically tastes exactly the same as Rokurinsha and there is no line (yet)...

Hitoshi Morita blog
Tabelog page
Diddlefinger Map (English labels)
Google Map

Shinkawa Taishoken/Shinkawa新川大勝軒/新川

 

This place does not appear to be all that well-known, at least not outside of this area, however it was recently featured in an issue of Otona No Shumatsu. It's located in an out-of-the-way area in Shinkawa, near Kayabacho station on the Hibiya-sen. You leave the station and cross over the river going southeast, past a nice set of cherry trees on your right. This place is almost certainly not related to the main Taishoken ramen chain, there seems to be a lower-tier of Chinese restaurants throughout Tokyo that are named Taishoken but are not related to the chain (or to each other), and this is one of them. They seem to be primarily famous for a liver-and-vegetable rice bowl. What I went there for, was my secret weakness "suratanmen", hot-and-sour soup with noodles in it. This soup had various vegetables in it, some chicken and beef stock, and then a very thick layer of fat and ra-yu (spicy red oil) on top. Lots of vinegar too. They have a wide ranging menu of many Chinese soup favorites. They seem to be moderately known for the liver and the suratanmen (that they actually call su-ramen, "すーらーめん"), you can see them both on the board out front. I thought the su-ramen was decent, perhaps a bit on the hot side, I like to get my suratanmen taste from a balance of ra-yu, pepper and vinegar + pork, and the pork was kind of skimpy too. Good but not quite worth a special trip. Nice home page though. I also have to say quite fairly-priced for the volume too.

Shop home page (better pics)
Diddlefinger Map (English labels)
Google Map

Aun/Yushima阿吽/湯島

  

Sichuan noodle place - excellent dan-dan men and a special "tsuyu-nashi" dan-dan men. If you are into dan-dan men then I would say this place is a must for you. They serve a special dan-dan men with just a very light spicy sauce (no full broth), and a lot of ground beef, greens and excellent spices (the second one down on the left on the menu picture above, it will be on the ticket machine as you walk in the door also). You can order the spiciness as level 3, 4 or 5 (you will see the levels on the machine too). I really liked the tsuyu-nashi dan dan men, that's what most of the other people in the store were having. Very creamy taste, the spices were perfect for me, the ground meat was good too - although I am not an expert on that part of the world I believe that this is how dan-dan men is frequently served in China. Once everything was mixed up in the bowl it was really quite excellent. Also what's good about this place is that their other offerings, such as the chashu-men, look good too.

Also because I couldn't resist, and I have no other category for this kind of stuff, here's a picture of a cranky-looking dog with a really bad combover.

Nagano Ramen blog page (better pics)
Supleks page
Diddlefinger Map (English labels)
Google Map

Ramen Hibiki/Shimotakaidoらーめん 響/下高井戸

    

Hibiki means "echo" or "reverbation", however what is interesting is that if you look at the kanji for hibiki, one of the components of the character is the "rou" or "郎" in Ramen Jiro:

響

(For you kanji-expert types the base radical is actually the "oto" 音 one at the bottom). Go figure. Anyhow, this place was a clean, well-lit, attentively-staffed place that seems to want to be a Ramen Jiro competitor, based on the pictures too, but unfortunately IMO does not come quite close enough with the taste. Only 3 people in there at about 12:30 PM on a Golden Week holiday day. It opened in March of this year and does not have any ranking on Supleks yet to speak of. It's about a 7 minute walk from Keio Shimotakaido station. The menu above points out some slightly unusual things, including "lettuce ramen". I actually had the standard shoyu chashumen for 900 yen. They will ask you what size yasais you want, the normal size would be "futsu" but they had two larger than that and one smaller. They will also ask if you want garlic - the standard amount was kind of skimpy, I would ask for more of it, by saying "ninniku oome (ooh-may) ni". The overall portion was decently-sized with standar moyashis and cabbage. The team was some sort of special "kozan cha" tea from Taiwan, again picture of the explanation above. What I would say the value of Hibiki is, is that if you wanted to sample the standard Ramen Jiro taste, or something close to it, but you were worried about all of the fat in the bowl, then this place might be an option since it has some of the standard Jiro taste, not all of it, but almost no fat in the bowl, seemed like it was shoyu and a lot of garlic and oil. The pork was decent, but was the rolled type, but on the positive size it was thickly cut, about 1/2 inch. This also is different from real Ramen Jiro branches where the pork is usually cut directly from the tenderloin, not processed at all by hand before that.

Saito blog page
Supleks page
Diddlefinger Map (English labels)
Google Map

Yojinbo/Jinbocho用心棒/神田神保町

 

Yojinbo loosely means "bodyguard" (the "jinbo" is a different set of kanji from the ones in Jinbocho though) and was the name of a famous Akira Kurosawa film. This shop opened approximately 8 weeks ago, in early March 2009. Many Jiro and Jiro-like places like to sport pig-themed or garlic themed-items as part of their decor and this place is no exception - they have a bag of garlic cloves hanging from the wall immediately outside the door, you can see it in some of the pictures here. While most reviews seem to be positive, my experience was average. First, there was a fairly long wait once I sat down, usually these places have the bowl in front of you pretty quickly. Second, the pork that came with my ramen was very dry and had a lot of chewy inedible portions. And they don't seem to know how to or want to deal with foreigners who speak (some) Japanese since even though I greeted them in Japanese and ordered in Japanese they still held up the garlic pot and motioned to it, instead of asking me "にんにく入れますか?". This taste was a standard Jiro taste, nothing spectacular. This place is closed Sundays, like the Kanda Jinbocho Ramen Jro across the street. I wonder why one place like this would open up directly across from one of the top-ranked Ramen Jiros in this city (the Kanda one is approximately 4.1 on Livedoor Gourmet, ranked 6th out of 32 listed), and if they were going to anyway, why they wouldn't be closed on a different day. Also interestingly enough, this place used to be a tsukemen place called Chonan that was also decently ranked on Supleks. Not sure why they closed. Toppings are standard, including a "zenbu mashi" selection that lets you specify that you want everything upgraded to large size. Pictures of the ticket machine at the links below.

Saito blog page
Supleks page
Diddlefinger Map (English labels)
Google Map

Takechan Niboshi Ramen/Yoyogiたけちゃんにぼしラーメン/代々木

 

I would say that Takechan is decent but average, not spectacular. High 50s on Supleks though. There were very few people in the place when I stopped in last Sunday after walking around in Yoyogi a bit. The Yoyogi branch (there are only two branches, so I hesitate to call it a chain) is fairly large and has a lot of room to move around in. Stange ramen-themed manga on the shelf. Quite a strong fish flavor from the soup. I think the trick here is that you have to get the hand-made noodles (choose the button with the "平打ち麺" on it. Regardless of whether you do that or not, the pork is still the star of the bowl. You can also apparently order some of Takechan's ramen online here, along with a slab of some of the special pork that they serve. When you bring up the home page wait for a few secs and it will change into a photo gallery that will let you see pictures of the person who is presumably Takechan himself.

Shop home page
Ramen Road blog
Diddlefinger Map (English labels)
Google Map