Ryukishin LAB0

Long time readers of Friends in Ramen will recall that a while ago I went to a shop called Ryukishin in  Kyoto. It's a pretty good shio ramen shop with branches in Kyoto, Osaka, and even now in the Kansai Airport and London. Recently they opened up an experimental shop where the late Tsukmen Tetsu used to be called Ryukishin LAB0. Every once in a while they change styles, and I found about it just in time to catch the last weekend of the first style: tantanmen.

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龍旗信LABO
Ōsaka-fu, Ōsaka-shi, Naniwa-ku, Nanbanaka, １丁目１４−１２

The Bowl
This was a solid if standard bowl of tantanmen. Spicy, bright orange broth that tastes a lot like chili oil, and thin, round, firm noodles. But it was good and I hadn't had standard tantanmen in almost a year. There were some interesting toppings; ground pork, onions, and what looked like fried lotus root.

Would I Go Again?
I would like to, but by time of writing LAB0 has changed themes. I'm sure I'll go for the next one though.

Should You Go?
You can't get tantanmen anymore, but if the next theme is as good, it's worth checking out.

Shiogensui

Shio ramen isn't my favorite style. I love kotteri ramen, and so when I choose between a light, thin shio bowl or a thick bowl of gyokai tonkotsu tsukemen, I usually go with the latter. But my brother was visiting me, so I needed to introduce him to shio ramen.

Shiogensui always shows up on lists of the best ramen shops in Osaka, but since it's kind of out of the way I've been too lazy to go there. With my brother in town and a friend who lived in the area, there was no better chance to check it out. We went in and all ordered the tennen, or natural, shio ramen.

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本店 塩元帥
Ōsaka-fu, Ōsaka-shi, Yodogawa-ku, Kikawahigashi, ３丁目６−２４

The Bowl
Wow, the bowl really lived up to its hype. The reason I don't usually love shio ramen is that it tends to be lacking flavor. Shiogensui did not at all; the broth was light, but it was delicious. The noodles were medium, soft, and soaked up the soup like sponges. The menma were pretty light as well, and the one big slice of chashu was juicy and great.

Would I Go Again?
Yeah, it's out of the way, but it might be the best shio I've ever had.

Should You Go?
Yes you should.

Tenkaippin Sohonten

It had been a long time since I had first visited Tenkaippin. Given how just how many branches of this super chain there are, it's almost surprising this would be my second visit.

My brother and I were visiting Kyoto on a Sunday. We decided to walk the Philosopher's Walk, stop at a couple of temples nearby, and end up at the flagship shop of the famous Kyoto franchise. Tenkaippin fans say that each branch has a slightly different flavor, and that nothing beats the original. I ordered the kotteri and prepared to find out if that was true.

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天下一品
Ichijoji Tsukudacho

The Bowl
The broth was a thick shoyu just like last time. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either, and it was a bit too salty. The medium noodles, chashu, and menma were all pretty run of the mill. I enjoyed the bowl, but it didn't really stand out from my previous visit to a random branch - decent enough but not worth going out of my way for.

Would I Go Again?
No.

Should You Go?
Eh, you should hit up Tenkaippin once at some point. The flagship is pretty far out of the way though.

Mitsuboshi Seimenjo

Back in Osaka! My older brother was still visiting, which means I had more ramen I had to show him. This time we headed to Fukushima to get a bowl and a drink. So many times before I had tried to go to Mitsuboshi Seimenjo with no success. But finally they were open, and in I went to get their famous gyokai shoyu ramen.

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みつ星製麺所
Ōsaka-fu, Ōsaka-shi, Fukushima-ku, Fukushima, ７丁目１７−２１

The Bowl
What a rich broth. It was creamy and fishy, almost like the broth you'd get with tsukemen. The flavor actually reminded me a lot of Teru, another fishy ramen shop. The noodles were medium, straight, and chewy. The toppings were as good as they looked - the smooth egg and really thick, really juicy piece of chashu.

Would I Go Again?
Yeah, it's very good and I'm running out of new places in Fukushima.

Should You Go?
Yes you should. Fukushima's a cool place so there are plenty of cool bars to get a drink at afterwards, too.

Tori no Ana

Chicken hole! That's what Tori no Ana means. Why? Because the broth is all chicken of course. This pairs with my previous shop as a rare no-pork ramen combo.

Tori no Ana was another classic Tokyo favorite of mine, and finally I was able to revisit it to review it for my loving readers. A bizarrely snowy day in Tokyo left my brother and I with no choice but to stop and get some good ol' fashioned chicken soup. There were two bowls, a white mild bowl, and a red spicy bowl. I got the spicy one.

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鶏の穴
Tōkyō-to, Toshima-ku, Higashiikebukuro, １丁目３９−２０

The Bowl
Mmm, thick chicken soup, with a healthy dose of spice. Straight, fat, yellow noodles to go with it. And no chicken ramen is complete without with some pieces of chicken-chashu and ground chicken. If I didn't know any better I would have said you can't make ramen without pork taste so good.

Would I Go Again?
Yes.

Should You Go?
Yes.

Tairyo Makoto

One brother leaves and the other visits. And of course a visit to Japan leads to a visit to Tokyo. We met up with one of my ramen buddies in Tokyo and hit up some weird places. To kick off the trip, we went for a wacky all-seafood shop. Kosher readers pay attention; there's a chance one of Tairyo Makoto's bowls doesn't contain pork or shellfish!

The bowl we had heard about before was the uni, or sea urchin, tsukemen. Uni can normally be found in expensive and strong-tasting sushi. I love sushi, but uni can be a bit much for even me. So what could go wrong with a whole bowl of thick uni tsukemen?

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大漁まこと
Tōkyō-to, Shibuya-ku, Dōgenzaka, １丁目１１−２

The Bowl
Wow talk about flavor. This might have been the thickest soup I've had since Muteppo. Buttery, super-thick uni, like that piece of sushi condensed into a molasses meant for noodles. The fat noodles barely even sank into the soup; I had to push them in with my chopsticks. The wari-soup made the soup a bit more digestible. It started to taste more like a bowl of seafood miso soup. But still with a large uni kick.

Would I Go Again?
It is really tempting. But if I did I would try a different dish.

Should You Go?
If you like seafood, yes. If you don't, why are you in Japan?

Junk Garage

Every trip out of Japan must have a trip back in. And every new year must have its first bowl of ramen. I'm slowly making my way through all of Tokyo Ramen Street's shops, and I have half of them eternally recorded on the internet to boot. The only one after last year's Hirogao is Ikaruga, which I've eaten at the main shop of.

I've really come around on abura soba, and aptly named Junk Garage is the abura-est of all. Garlic, oil, cheese? Choose how much you want. There is no limit to what can be a topping at Junk Garage

In a weird coincidence, as I'm writing this I've realized that for the past two years, my first ramen of the year has had the word "junk" in the name. Can I do a 2014 hat trick?

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ジャンクガレッジ
Tōkyō-to, Chiyoda-ku, Marunouchi, １丁目９−１

The Bowl
Soak in the pre and post-mix photos; I'm getting hungry just writing about them. An egg, chashu, and some vegetables are among the toppings I remember in this mish-mash bowl. The noodles were thick and firm, and a little peppery. The sauce combination was very oily and garlicky, and had weird tastes of shoyu and cheese strewn about. And of course the chashu. That was very fatty too.

Would I Go Again?
This was my second time and I'm looking forward to my third.

Should You Go?
Yes. I've never seen an abura soba place quite like Junk Garage.