Sun Noodle Ramen Kits - New Gyokai Tonkotsu and Jiro Style Ramen

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Mahiru/Kandaまひる/神田

 

Ramen Jiro clone. Pork a bit lacking. However it's the only one right near the station, almost connected to it, on the northeast side. Very small number of seats. Was written up in some ramen mags in the past, may have been mentioned on the cover of one as evidenced by the sign outside. Noodles thick and correctly done, but broth closer to Tokyo shoyu than Jiro tonkotsu.

Google Maps
Supleks Page

Mendokoro MAZERU/Akihabara麺処 MAZERU/秋葉原

  

Down the end of a long hall that you get to via the entrance on the unnamed west-east street that runs between the JR and Metro Akihabara stations, just south of both of them. You will see the sign outside if you look for it, picture above. 7 seats, very cramped if I remember correctly. Excellent pork. Ask for no raw egg ("nama tamago nuki de") and a bit of extra soup ("shiru mo sukoshi onegai shimasu". The small is actually quite large. and they are very generous with the garlic, but not the yasai. Self service water is also crammed in there somehow too. Good option for the Akihabara area that does not appear to be that well-known yet but is well-ranked on Tabelog and Ramen Database.

Google Maps
Tabelog Page

Hasumi/Kamiuma蓮爾/上馬

 

I think the name of this shop is actually a male given name, pronounced either Hasumi or Renji. The insides of this Kamiuma branch are probably the worst-kept I have ever seen in Tokyo (the front auto-door was broken when I eent) and I have seen a lot of crappy ramen shops. There is also a bramch in Noborito (Machida-shi?, Odakyu-sen?) and I hope that one is better-kept. But I guarantee you will forget the messy insides once you taste the ramen and tsukemen at the Kamiuma branch. The noodles are extremely thick as you can see from the pictures, and they come with a generous helping of moyashis and garlic. The dipping sauce is available in spicy and regular shoyu versions and comes with a generous helping of large fatty pork chunks. I had the spicy one and it was quite spicy. The texture of the two combined is very satisfying. Easy to reach from either Komazawadaigaku or Sangenjaya Stations. Looks like the kind of place that keeps irregular hours, even though they are listed as 5 PM to 10 PM weekdays and regular ones on Saturdays. No phone number unfortunately. Highly ranked on Supleks.

Google Maps
Ramen Database Page

Shimento/Ogikubo四面燈/荻窪

    

This is a Jiro clone in Ogikubo, the best one in a long time. Well-blended between shoyu and tonkotsu, very salty broth, one of the best broths out of all the the Jiro clones that I have had. Well-cut pork pieces, good balance of dark meat and lighter meat and fat as you can see from the pictures. Nice really thick squiggly chigire hand-made noodles, like super-thick linguine. You want the second button from the left on the machine, on the top row, 850 yen. No wait on a Saturday immediately after open. Regulars coming in immediately, good sign. Check the opening times, and days before you go. Interesting comic at each seat that explains some of the menu items and provides some light comedy. Watch for bicycles up and down the street when you exit. At the ticket hand-over time that's when you tell them what toppings you want. The sign outside says "doka-mori". The best translation I can find for doka is heavy, earthen, bulky, noisy. This is a bulky hearty bowl that will certainly satisfy.

Google Maps
Good Pictures

Mega Ganja/Kawagoe Cityメガガンジャ/川越市

  

Good Ramen Jiro-inspired shop, admittedly out of the way in Kawagoe City in Saitama, but fortunately right near the station. Long shotengai to walk down near it, with stores like Zara, Starbucks and Maruhiro. Square-in-cross section extremely thick (as thick as the chopsticks) darker Jiro-style noodles. Soup is decent but average for this type of shop. Very strict shop staff, made us wait outside even in the rainy cold. Buy your ticket and then queue up outside close to the building. They also add (for 150 yen more) a special aburi (アブリ) grilled fatty pork bits on the side. Huge volume for the price if you get the extra veggies ("yasai mashi") Closed Wednesdays.

Google Maps
Shop Home Page
Other Blog

YaRou Ramen/Kanda野郎ラーメン/神田

   

This is an interesting semi-Jiro clone place, with only 7 seats. Note the reverse yellow-text-on-black sign, compared to Jiro's black-on-yellow. They have both abura-soba-like items and regular ramen. Very cramped at a small counter. One of the guys was horsing around and a whole set of metal pots came down on his head. Good taste overall, but it needed a kick. The instructions on the all (printed above) say to add the special "punch" oil/sauce, but I did not find that to make a big difference. The raw egg that they put in the shiru-nashi dishes is not noticable. Some extra abura was sprinkled on top. They could have left the shredded nori out, that texture just does not mix with the other stuff in the bowl. Not clear whether they have a second floor, or a basement, or not. It's down the street from Rramen Kenkyujou and Motoishi, this is becoming a new ramen street of leading-edge and different ramen places, all with abura-soba-type dishes as their lead items.

Google Maps
Shop Home Page

Buta Ko Mugi/Gotanda豚とこむぎ/五反田

 

Another Jiro clone (name means "pig and barley/wheat"), this time near JR Gotanda station. Very friendly woman with powerful lungs outside guiding people into the shop. The background music was the Beatles. Broth was a bit weak, not like a real Jiro taste, soup was almost clear, not too much fat. Had a nice conversation with one of the other patrons sitting next to me (who spoke pretty good English) about the local area and our work. Pork was fairly dry. Noodles very thin, like linguine. Shoyu tare in the tall brown beer bottle with the dispenser top. Free toppings include tama negi, a bit rare for this type of shop. They also had a gentei curry-topped ramen that actually looked a bit strange in the photo on the wall. The Gotanda area can use a Jiro-themed shop, but we can probably do better than this, especially this close to the one on Yamate Dori. First 10 customers on line every day get free extra pork. Closed on Sundays. Don't rush.

On the way back stopped at the Wired Cafe on the second floor of the Gotanda Atre, above the Seijo Ishii. Internet signal iffy as always there.

Supleks page
Google Maps

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

Ramen Daijiro/Akihabaraらーめん 大二郎/秋葉原

 

On the street in Akihabara that runs parallel to Chuo Dori but more west, a new Jiro-like place opened up in late 2008, the only one of that type in the area I believe. However of course the Kanda Jiro is about 10-15 mins walk to the west. Technically this area is Suehirocho or SotoKanda but I will list it under Akihabara since that's what many visitors will be looking for. This is the first Jiro-like ramen place in the immediate area that I know of. When you go there, it's very important to remember that the owners do not want people waiting inside the store - don't enter until someone leaves. While waiting outside, if you are tall, please don't bang your head on the lantern. They have one table for 4, and a total of 12 counter seats (3 and 9), and a toilet in the back. I always wondered why there weren't more Jiros or Jiro-like ramen places in the upper right hand corner of the loop, and more specifically why there wasn't one in Akihabara - you would figure this would be the perfect place for one based on the type of people who like Jiro and hang out in Akihabara. The former name of this place was "winter horse" I believe. The noodles were spaghetti thickness and while they were the right Jiro color, they didn't have as much bite or taste as the thicker ones found at many Jiros. The soup was mostly shoyu, with only some tonkotsu - there were fat chunks but the broth was still relatively clear for a Jiro-like broth, whereas in some places the broth becomes a brownish gravy (at least before the fat rises to the top). The veggies were about 50/50 moyashi and cabbetsu and the cabbetsu was cut into very big pieces - however the pork was one area were it was significantly different from Jiro locations - most Jiros branches use a loin type of cut - tenderloin or eye, which come with some fat - but these were belly cuts, like kaku ni-style - don't get me wrong, it was good, it was just not a true "Jiro" style rough pork cut in that sense. Each piece was more than 1/2 fat, which would be a problem even at a real Jiro. There were 4 people working there - the most I have ever seen in a place like this, I think - very orderly, getting bowls to people quite quickly after they sat down. Tissues and spoons. Recommended for the taste and the novelty in Akiba.

Amasan review
Diddlefinger Map (English labels)
Google Map

Junk Garage/Osakiジャンクガレッジ/大崎

  

UPDATE - 2008-10-19 - I haven't been there recently myself but I have it on good authority that Junk Garage has moved to Saitama Prefecture.

Junk Garage is known for a very different style of ramen, more of a "bunch of stuff in a bowl" style, as you can see from the pictures. We arrived at about 6:30 PM and there was a line of about 10 people already. There are 7 seats, interesting wood paneling on the counter and and lots of porn under it. Junk Garage is only open in the evenings, starting at 6 PM. It's right next to the famous Rokurinsha (六厘舎), which closes at 4:30. You have to be very careful standing on line as the cars come down that street very tightly, the store staff comes out every few mins to take your tickets and remind people to stay behind the orange cones. The base style that the shop is known for is the mazesoba (ma-zeh, まぜそば), that's firm noodles with a bit of oil and just a small amount of soup in the bottom of the bowl, similar to shiru nashi (汁なし) style or abura soba (油そば). And it had some coarse-ground black pepper on it, just a perfect amount, and the noodles were done perfectly. There were some noodles of a thinner width in the bowl but they were mostly thick, almost as thick as the chopsticks as you can see from the picture. They have ramen too, and it is prepared in a manner very close to the Jiro style. The set of available toppings is slightly different for ramen vs. mazesoba, and you can see a picture of the toppings menu below. By default for the mazesoba you get a raw egg on top (actually the yolk only), so be sure to tell them if you don't want that. The default amount of garlic was a little small, perhaps get ninniku mashi. However you can only get yasai with the ramen, not with the mazesoba. Free tissues on top of the ticket machine round out the deal. Somewhat different and very impressive.

One Coin blog page
Diddlefinger Map (English labels)
Google Map

ZERO1/KamataZERO1/鎌田

  

In a very busy entertainment area north-west of the station, directly west of the KeihinTohoku-sen platform, there is a very cramped shop (in the same location as the old Kamada Ramen Dai I believe). There is only room for about 4 people to wait inside. This shop is relatively new, it opened on July 4th, and the workers look like they still had a bit of practice to get through before they were fully "in the groove" as it were. They all had sopping-wet towels wrapped around their heads and they all looked like they were going slightly nuts, I would imagine partially due to the odd way the shop is laid out. Four workers (three men, one woman) serving only 12 seats. There is a dumbwaiter in one corner of the shop which implies a second floor (or basement) at some point. They initially forgot my niku mashi tickets. For the size of the store, and the number of ACs that they had, it should have been cooler in there. They served Rokurinsha-style mochi-mochi noodles, perhaps a bit thinner than Rokurinsha but not by much. The exact same tonkotsu gyoukai taste, even with the powdered pork. Napkins but no tissues. This place claims that their ramen is very gattsuri (plentiful). One look at the menu and you realize that this store is trying to be Rokurinsha, Ramen Jiro and Junk Garage all rolled into one, examine the menus and pictures. They had the ground-up pork, and the fried onions were the dry from a bottle type. They gave me a special ticket providing free service until Sept 7 - pickled egg, fried onions, beer or a soft drink. I think this shop will be capable of great things once they work out the initial kinks. If you want the Rokurinsha/Tetsu taste but don't want to wait on the long lines, and don't mind all of the growing pains of a new shop, keep an eye on this place.

Shirasu Diary page
Diddlefinger Map (English labels)
Google Map

Ramen Dai/Kamataらーめん大/鎌田

  

The Kamata branch is one of the several shops in the Ramen Dai chain. Kamata is the last stop on the Tokyu Ikegami line going south, starting at JR Gotanda station. Ramen Dai is similar to Ramen Jiro, I don't know if I would call it a competitor or not (they even sport similar yellow signs, menus and ticket machines) but the taste is very similar. This shop moved from a previous location around the corner and on the other side of the tracks. You can see the sign on the back wall of the new shop from the train underpass. This shop's taste is very similar to the Ogikubo Ramen Dai. However the pork was a bit of a disappointment, the 2 枚 ticket was sold out at 4 PM - and the two pieces that came with the default ramen order were mostly fat. Really the skillfully-cooked noodles and garlicky oniony broth are the winners here. the noodles are quite al-dente by default, I wouldn't ask for them to be any less done. Combined with the moyashis (almost no cabbage), there is a very nice mouthfeel. The other concern was that the portion of noodles for the tsukemen is small, compared to the ramen, however of course it is a stronger broth. I recommend the omori and at least one extra pork buta ticket. The bowls in the pictures look bigger than they really are. They also have 20 abura soba dishes per day, which I have not tried. It's a very spacious store, it looks new, fridges + such behind a black curtain. Be sure to toss your tissues in the garbage pail behind you.

Ninniku Yasai page
Diddlefinger Map (English labels)
Google Map

Ramen Sabu Rou/Higashi Shinbashiラーメンさぶ郎/東新橋

  

Sabu Rou opens at 12 noon - there were about 8 or 9 people in line already when it opened, it is located in the back of another store called Cafe Coho that has a crown-like sign on the front. Once you enter, oshiboris are on top of the ticket machine, take one along with your glass of water before you sit down. There was a generous portion of noodles and the veggies (almost all moyashis) are yours for the taking as much as you want. The broth has a fairly strong Jiro taste, but a bit watered down, and it tasted like a bit of pepper in it. They also provide a pitcher of hot weaker broth, probably regular broth mixed with noodle water. There are various signs on the wall indicating the proper way to order, along with a sign saying that if you ask for the extra veggie size, you have to pay 500 yen if you don't finish it. However they couldn't do the tsukemen noodles as katame for whatever reason, I have seen this before. The broths are available in miso or shoyu style and both of these can be requested in spicy versions. Noodles can also be requested in thicker or thinner widths.

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

Ramen Fujimaru/Minamimachiラーメン富士丸/南町

Ramen Fujimaru is a fairly "informal" store some distance north and west of the west exit of JR Ikebukero Station. It has a large orange awning and is visible from a fair distance away, along a road (under the highway) of mostly warehouses etc. Inside they had a lot of loud music playing. The chashu ramen there was probably one of the biggest bowls of the "shou" size that I have ever had from any ramen shop, Jiro-like or otherwise, in my entire time here, for 950 yen. It was full of linguine size noodles with a very "coarse" texture and a medium amount of taste. Remember that the thinner the noodles, the more of them they can cram into the bowl. The broth was quite thick and more like a shoyu taste than a tonkotsu taste, with a very thick clear layer of oil on top. The pork was probably 50% or more fat and I ended up leaving a lot of it in the bowl. You have to spoon a lot of the broth over the noodles and moyashis in order to get everything to a common temperature and get started. It's a very hot, very greasy and messy bowl and there will be food all over the counter when you are done. While you can get extra abura in a separate dish, if you go here I instead recommend that you get the small dish of shoga in shoyu that is available according to the orange toppings sign in the back. It's intended to be put over the top of the moyashis. Self-service oshiboris are in a large milk crate in the back of the store next to the bathroom. This store's employees will ask you to move if necessary in order to create a continous space for more customer groups to come in, so if they are talking to you and motioning to another seat, take the hint. However I have to say they were very polite and friendly, as though I was the first gaijin that they had seen for a long time. Note the benches outside where you should be waiting before they motion to you to come in.

Livedoor Gourmet page
Diddlefinger Map (English labels)
Google Map

MenYa Zeroshiki/Itabashi麺屋零式/板橋

 

This ramen shop is about a 10 minute walk from Shin-Itabashi station on the Toei Mita line. There was about a 20-25 minute wait, inside the store, no chairs, and this was on a Sunday. The store is 10-11 seats and was almost completely full of teenage boys in blue blazers, probably returning from Sunday cram school. The "zero" kanji in "Zeroshiki" actually means zero (0), and shiki means "ceremony". Not sure what the two of them together means, my dictionaries didn't have a compound like this. I will have to ask at work to see if anyone knows there. The man behind the counter is a very intense younger guy working alone and really hustling. Very firmly asking customers to wait and filing their orders carefully on the wall above him. Some good pictures of the regular tsukemen are here. You can see the thick noodles similar to Tetsu's noodles, for example. I actually had the zeroshiki tsukesoba (零式 つけそば) which was a tsukemen-type dish, with larger amounts of veggies but not a lot of pork, with close to a Jiro taste. This is limited to only a set number of bowls per day, and it took about 10 minutes to prepare due to the very thick noodles. It included two boiled quail eggs, and one of those really long strange pointy mushrooms (6" long) so be sure to specify if you don't want those. The noodles were fairly thick and rectangular cut, I recommend getting them katame in this case.

Tabelog page
Shirasu Ramen Diary
Diddlefinger Map (English labels)
Google Map

Kino/Ookayama基乃/大岡山

 

Ramen Kino is about 5 mins walk southwest from Ookayama Station on the Tokyu Meguro and Tokyu Oimachi lines. It's a small shop with 8 seats at a counter and two very small tables for two. Again this is a very good shop that serves excellent Jiro-like ramen and tsukemen dishes. You can come here and get practically the same exact taste of Ramen Jiro without having to wait on line for 1/2 hour or more at a real Ramen Jiro, not that I have anything against doing that though. There were a couple of free seats in the place when I stopped by, early on a Sunday afternoon. They also have miso-based dishes and a smaller ramen dish, for children I guess. I ordered the shouyu tonkotsu tsukemen with extra chashu and I am pleased to say that this shop comes as close to the true Ramen Jiro taste as just about any other Jiro-like shop I have been to. I ordered "ninniku yasai mashi" which included a large helping of extra veggies as you can see from the picture, since I don't think I've been eating enough vegetables lately. The noodles were more yellow in color than many Ramen Jiro noodles are, but they were very springy and tasty and decently sized (I got the regular size dish, not the omori, it's the same price for more noodles I believe). The yasai were mostly moyashi but there was some cabbage in there, perhaps 80-20. The pork was very good, but thinner-sliced than most Ramen Jiros, but about the same fat/meat level. There were two more slices than you see in the picture, I put them into my soup bowl before I snapped the pic. A TV in the corner was showing various Japanese Sunday news programs. I can definitely recommend Ramen Kino.

Livedoor Gourmet page
Diddlefinger Map (English labels)
Google Map

Tsukemen Marukami/MinamiKarasuyamaつけ麺 まるかみ/南烏山

 

Tsukemen Marukami is right near the Chitose-Karasuyama station on the Keio Line (not the New Keio Line), walk south about two minutes when coming out of the south exit. You will actually see a sign for it on the back side of one of its neighbor buildings, before you turn the corner onto the shop's street. The shop was very clean and orderly and well-run, even though there appeared to be some training of new staff going on during my visit. I had the 320g yasai soba (野菜そば) with three slices of extra chashu (total 1000yen), a hot dish which was actually like ramen, only with significantly less broth in the bowl, just enough to stir everything around in and get it coated. Good volume for the price. If you get the tsukemen instead, smaller and larger portions are available for the same price. Better pictures of all the dishes are available in the link below. The noodles were like thin spaghetti only darker and firmer. The broth was very much like the Shinjuku Ramen Jiro broth - the basic Jiro taste but with a lot less suspended fat and a stronger salty and slightly spicy taste. The yasais were evenly distributed between moyashi and cabbage, and several other types of veggies were available on the ticket machine, including scallions (わけぎ), something you don't see that often as a choosable topping. Fresh crushed garlic was available on the counter. The pork slices were a bit on the small side but well-done. No line at 11:30 AM on the Saturday before New Year's.

Shirasu No Ramen page
Diddlefinger Map (English labels)
Google Map