Tokyo  ramen  in English  24 by 7
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Stopped here on the way back from HAGGY. Tolerable take-out items including a decent chahan and a make-at-home aburamen (noodles need to be cooked, the rest mixed in yourself). The ingredients are pictured above along with the final product. Eat-out is better than eat-in at this place.
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Shop Home Page
Jounetsu ("passion") Ramen TenMen - not a huge amount to write here. Decent Yokohama-style ramen in the area around JR Higashi Nakano Station. Large portions and the pork was decent. Fair amount of garlic already in the soup, and the liquid fat comes to the top pretty easily. Cabbage, moyashi and sesame already added. Not too many people in the shop though for a Saturday. Almost no ranking on Supleks for whatever reason.
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Supleks Page
On a starting-to-get-hot-and-humid-again-sigh day back in late May right before one of my many overseas trips this summer, I decided to hit Hayashi. Tucked behind Shibuya Mark City on a relatively nondescript street up the hill. Simplest menu I have seen in a while (even Ramen Jiro locations have more choices): ramen, with or without boiled egg or grilled pork. This place specializes in the following: really tasty ramen, long lines and small portion sizes (for the price). Inside is a long horizontal counter, it's very cramped and as usual somehow I got the far end to squeeze my fat gaijin ass into. Heavy fish broth-side taste with somen-like (but not quite as thin as) noodles. Very edible. Rich taste with some grit to it. Pork and menma were excellent, pork cut a bit thin though. Closed Sundays, holidays. IMPORTANT: only open from 11:30 to 3:00 each day - so you know what the Saturday lines will be like.
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Kigeki Ramen Page (huge number of pics)
Tabelog Page
Opened recently in Kikunodai, about 2 minutes walk north from Keio Shibasaki Station. My research suggests that the tencho came from AFURI in Ebisu. Very simple menu - basic ramen and tsukemen, one choice of broth (strong sweet shoyu flavor but not thick consistency), with boiled egg or without (the ramen also has a tokusei special version with extra toppings). Standard toppings, chashu was quite good. Noodles are thick linguine-type, a bit difficult to pull up but cooked perfectly, 2 or 300 grams as you prefer. The dipping sauce has a sweet/sour taste with perhaps a bit of ginger and almost too many sesame seeds mixed in. One small piece of pork in the bowl so I opted for the chashu topping for an extra 200 yen, a total of 1000 yen. They have both chopped and pureed garlic on the counter. Very small inside, only 7 seats. Additional problems include fairly uncomfortable heat inside the store (one customer decided to remain waiting outside even after being motioned in to wait inside by the staff, why they don't turn on the aircon even a little bit is beyond me), and those annoying plastic chopsticks with the finely tapered ends that are exactly the wrong type for slippery tsukemen. The reviews on Google seem to be mostly positive as are tabelog. Closed Mondays.
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Shirasu Ramen Diary
Tabelog Page
Pretty good suratanmen - and good gyoza - in a Chinese-y place near JR Shinanomachi Station. They have an interesting collection of Chinese food items for purchase near the register, candy bars and spices and stuff like that, in addition to omochikaeri Chinese lunch items. Very thick broth, but not much pork, moderate amount of pepper, neither the pepper nor the soup flavors were too strong. The problem with most suratanmens, including this one, is that they give you such a huge portion. Why is that a problem you ask? Well this, along with the fact that the soup is so dense and hot (meaning a high latent heat content) means that the soup takes forever to cool down to a temperature where you can eat it. And during that time the noodles are still cooking and getting softer and softer - the fact that suratanmen noodles are typically thinner than most does not help here. One way to cheat the process a bit is to get some ice water, drink the water, and then add the ice to it.
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Tabelog Page
Interesting shop down the street from the Jiro clone ラーメン野郎 (that I have not gone to yet but plan to soon as they have an interesting-looking shiru nashi dish). And also almost right next to the interesting Motoishi, on the same side of the street, that we visited early this year or late last. Very eclectic inside, not sure why they claim they are a kenkyujyo (research location). Closed Sundays. However they do have some odd items on the menu, but very tasty ones. I had the shio buta mazesoba. Nice texture, homemade firm noodles, very salty with good broth left in the bowl. The green pepper vinegar (actually more the consistency of oil) pictured above makes a big difference and of course with all maze-mens you have to throw some black pepper on top. The small green leaves in the bowl I could have done without, a lot of mazesoba is about the combined texture, but the large greasy slice of kakuni-buta made up for it. At night they turn into more of an izakaya/sakaba like Motoishi, and they have a more limited ramen menu. They also have an interesting take-home ra-yu made with Chinese sansho pepper, 500 yen. Very spicy but recommended.
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Shop Home Page
Interesting place, I don't usually recommend udon shops but this place makes its own noodles and makes them in both lighter "shiro" and darker "kuro" (not really that dark as such) varieties. You can specify which one you want when you order, regardless of which dish you get. Also they are (sort of) cashing in on the tonkotsu gyoukai craze by offering the first (I have seen) gyoukai chashu tsukemen udon, with udon noodles that are "ramen style" or so they say, just the desire to be different I guess, while not really being different. Very cho genki ramen ojisan behind the counter, be sure to listen to him carefully. Very into his job with the little rubber boots and all. Various other broth typesin cluding the very common vegetable shoyu types, sometimes with chicken, that are typical of udon shops. Counter a bit cramped. Also you can get either the light or dark noodles as omiyage to go. Buy a ticket for them at the same time you buy your meal ticket.
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Shop Home Page
Another men sakaba, with a lot of crazy horumon-type items written up on cardboard-box-cutout signs on the walls. Low budget all the way, open 24 hours for the late night types. Go to this place if you want a large amount of plain tsukemen noodles in a plain shio broth with a bunch of chopped up negis and a huge amount of salt, and nothing else. Friendly staff but not a customer in there when I went on a Saturday.
P.S. I have a feeling that I do not have the reading of the shop name's kanji correct.
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Another Blog
The specialty at Kookai (kookai = "air and sea") branches is a thinner-textured, saltier tonkotsu gyoukai broth, with few to no powdery particles swimming at the bottom. If you like the taste of tonkotsu gyoukai but are put off by the thickness or the texture, then you might want to consider a branch of the Kookai chain. They also have a shoyu-based version that I have not yet tried. This branch on the Ebisu/Shirokane border (near the good Chinese place Totenkai) is a bit cramped but has a wing sticking out in front with some larger tables. Noodle portions at Kookai branches tend to run small, and the noodles will typically be linguine-style, similar in width and firmness. Also ask for no nori on top (nori nuki de onegai shimasu) if you don't want any of that stuff. Depending on the branch your noodles and toppings may be served in either a wooden basket or a wooden tray. Excellent aburi chanshu and boiled greens top off the dish nicely, however the aburi chashu (炙り 焼豚) may add 2-300 yen to the price. Kookai branches are generally also clean and well-run, good places to go.
Kookai Home Page
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Sorry for the hiatus all - was travelling for work and vacation for quite a while. Now back in Tokyo, here are three links that have graced my Inbox recently:
From Justin McCurry at The Guardian (RamenTokyo gets a plug here):
Ramen - Japan's Super Slurpy Noodles
From Sandra at Japan Pulse:
Morning Ramen - Breakfast of Tokyoites
On the FC2 Japanese video sharing site (the title literally translated is "Sneaking In! The Real Scoop (Scope?) on Ramen Jiro's Secrets"):
潜入！リアルスコープ ラーメン二郎の秘密
The Meguro Ramen Jiro is less than 10 mins walk from where I live and work so I have probably been there about 10 times over the last few years. In my opinion it's not as good as it used to be, you really don't get any meat anymore, seems like almost all fat.
Enjoy. More reviews to come shortly, did a lot of typing up on the plane rides...
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