博多ラーメン ばりこて Barikote: porco rosso

How have I not come here before? Barikote is among the handful of best Hakata ramen shops in Tokyo. On a rain-soaked typhoon night, this was the perfect post-drinking ramen.

Hakata ramen (650yen)

Appropriately priced, this is Hakata ramen at its finest - cheap, quick, stinky soul food. Barikote's broth is cloudy and white, made from 100% pork bones boiled for over 16 hours. No cheating with fish soup, chicken, or vegetables here. Surprisingly, this broth is mellow and easy to drink, packing all of the punch of a thick pork stew with none of the heaviness.

The noodles are fantastic, handmade and shipped in from the main shop in Nagahama, Kyushu every single day.

I recommend eating the noodles and drinking only a minimal amount of the soup. Then, order a half or full kaedama 替え玉 (extra portion of noodles) for a mere 50 or a 100 yen more. Trick out your second helping with the standard spicy takana greens, pickled pink ginger, and copious amounts of grated garlic and sesame seeds.

Maybe shops like this are a dime a dozen in Hakata, but Barikote's pure, piggy, and fulfilling tonkotsu is a rarer beast in Tokyo.

Tokyo, Suginami-ku, Koenji Minami 1-30-15

Closest stn: Higashi-Koenji

Open from 1130am-3pm and 530pm-2am (closed Mondays)

Hearts

らぁ麺 やまぐち辣式 Yamaguchi Ratsushiki: salt n' pepper

Sometimes, I'm tempted not to blog about my favorite ramen shops, lest they become overrun by tourists. Yamaguchi's latest shop falls under such consideration. This is Yamaguchi's second shop after his shoyu shop in Takadanobaba, one of Hearts two or three favorites in the city.

"Ratsushiki" is difficult to translate exactly into English, but might best be defined as "sharp style." This is ramen with bite. They only serve a mapotofu-inspired mazesoba...

Mara mazesoba with small rice (800yen)

...and a shio ramen (always get the wontons).

Shio ramen with shrimp wontons (930yen)

First off, the shio. This is not a side endeavor for Yamaguchi-san. The soup - beautiful and golden - has an addictive quality that makes one not want to put the ladle down. You could call this ramen "crack style." The flavor of the ingredients used to derive the dashi - seaweed, scallops - is very strong, but work in harmony. This soup could be served in an expensive Japanese kappo dinner. I doubt I'll taste a better ramen than this one in 2016.

The mara mazesoba was a totally different beast. Yamaguchi-san told us that he loves mapotofu and was inspired to make a ramen out of it. Lots of Chinese-style diners serve mabo ramen, but he found that the tofu made the bowl too watery, so his mabo mazemen eliminates the tofu for a pure umami experience. The spicy paste, numbing pepper, and combination of ground and chopped pork provides a counterpunch to the refined shio. Despite being spicy, the flavor is never overwhelming, and you can taste the quality of the bowl until the very last slurp. For those who want a less intense and more creamy experience, add the onsen tamago soft-cooked egg. Definitely order a side of white rice to make sop up the last remaining bits of sauce.

I thought Yamaguchi-san only made shoyu ramen, but his expanded offerings blew my mind. The only thing I wish is that his shops were closer to my home and work.

Tokyo, Koto-ku, Toyocho 4-6-3
Closest stn: Toyocho

Open from 1130am-3pm and 530-9pm (closed Thursdays)

Lum

麺屋 一楽 Ichiraku: stay with you

Ichiraku is one of the thickest bowls of chicken sludge in the city. Made from whole chickens boiled for hours on end by the solitary chef of the shop, its a rich bowl with collagen character.

Noko tori paitan (770yen)

Open until 1am on weekdays and located about 30 seconds from Iidabashi station, this is post-drinking tori paitan if you have the stomach for it. The broth is bubbling when its plopped in front of you and the medium-width noodles are stringy and chewy. The whole thing looks and feels a little wet and sloppy, and your lips will be glistening with grease and oil and chicken fat after about two minutes.

But you'll finish it, especially after a late summer night of beers. You might regret not ordering an extra helping of the thinly sliced, fatty chicken chashu, and you also might regret eating the whole thing an hour later. Ichiraku's thick paitan will stay with you, for better and worse.

Tokyo, Chiyoda-ku, Fujimi 2-3-14
Closest stn: Iidabashi

Open from 11am-1am (closes at 9pm on weekends)

Hearts

煮干しつけ麺 宮本 Miyamoto: high fidelity

Rounding out our tsukemen September is one of the brightest new shops that opened last year. Miyamoto is yet another high-quality tonkotsu-gyokai, this one coming from a master who trained at the highly regarded Itto.

Gokuko (ultra thick) niboshi tsukemen (830yen)

The signature tsukemen is a broth of rich and briny sludge. What separates Miyamoto from other refined tsukemen is the concentration on gyokai over tonkotsu. Some people might not go for it, but this is a nice alternative to the pork-intensive dipping soups of most Tokyo bowls. The broth is intensely dense, maybe the thickest standard tsukemen broth we've ever had, but surprisingly slurpable due to the lack of meat concentration.

The noodles, supplied by Itto, are immaculate. With great bite and thickness, these are maybe the best thick-cut tsukemen noodles outside of only a couple of those shops mentioned above. The only downside here is you need to order a larger portion, as the standard 200g is less than your average tsukemen noodle pile. This was one of the rare times I wanted more noodles to sop up the thick broth.

Miyamoto also serves up a couple of regular ramen, with a light option for those looking for a less intense bowl. The chukasoba is also niboshi-heavy, though without any pork bone broth to cut the fish, the broth is a little too sour.

Gokujo (ultra quality) niboshi soba (780yen)

Great thin noodles are a nice match for the lighter soup, but you should really get the tsukemen.

One thing that must be mentioned is that the chefs and staff really know how to turn over a counter. There were maybe 10 people ahead of us, but we waited only about 20 minutes to get seated and served. Despite that, we didn't feel rushed and the staff greeted us on the way in and out.

Very good bowls enhanced by a professional operation makes it easy to see why Miyamoto made so many best-of lists in 2015, despite being out in Kamata (also the hometown of Ishii Isami, mangaka of 750 Rider!).

Tokyo, Ota-ku, Nishi-Kamata 7-8-1
Closest stn: Kamata

Open from 11am-230pm and 6-9pm (closed Wednesdays)

Hearts

つけ麺 竹川 Takekawa: the unexpected men

We love walking around Setagaya, and when we are starving, we walk to nearby ramen shops unconsciously. We wanted to try Washo, a highly regarded Taishoken clone, but gave up once we saw the insanely long line. Instead, we went to an alternative shop specializing in tori paitan tsukemen.

Tsukemen (850yen)

I like tori paitan, but sometimes it's a little sticky or stinky because of the richness of the soup. Takekawa's soup looks really rich, and my worry kicked into hyperdrive, but it wasn't sticky or smelly at all. With the first bite, I tapped Hearts' shoulder with much excitement because I wanted to tell him how good it was.

Like camino, Takekawa also serves their tsukemen with vegetables. Where the veggies are the star in camino, they are more like colorful supporting actors here. Tomatoes, zucchini, radish, carrots - all of them organic - gave me a good impression that this shop is considerate of their female clientele.

Takekawa is small, but the warm ramen master and wooden decor made me feel relaxed. Setagaya is a fierce ramen district, so the shop isn't currently as highly regarded as some of the others in the area, but it should be far more popular than it is.

Tokyo, Setagaya-ku, Taishido 2-1-1
Closest stn: Sangenjaya

Open from 12-3pm and 630-11pm (closed Wednesdays)

Lum