Kitaotsuka Ramen / 北大塚ラーメン - Otsuka

Kitaotsuka Ramen (北大塚ラーメン) is a ramen shop near Otsuka station, famous for some of the best and most tender chashu in and around Tokyo. The ramen shop is run by a very endearing elderly Mongolian couple, who have a very much "no frills" approach to ramen. If you are searching for the best chashu in Tokyo, then Kitaotsuka Ramen has to be on your ramen hunting list.

*Front of Kitaotsuka Ramen near Otsuka Station.*

The soup at Kitaotsuka Ramen is completely dominated by the tare seasoning, of which they add around 70-80 milliliters to the bowl. Normal ramen bowls mostly use 20-30 milliliters, just as a comparison. The tare is actually the chashu marinade, which I personally think is mainly soy sauce, msg and a bit of ginger. During the marinating process, it loses some of its salinity and gets infused with lots of pork flavor. The base broth is made of chicken, but it's hard to really tell at the end, with all the flavors fighting for a spot on your tongue.

Very rich soup at Kitaotsuka, seasoned with the soy sauce base chashu marinade. — *Very rich soup, seasoned with the soy sauce base chashu marinade.*

What you really come here for though is the chashu. Although there are also regular ramen on the menu with only a few pieces of chashu as a topping, almost every customer goes for the chashumen. The chashumen come with so much chashu that the meat completely covers your ramen bowl. The chashu is thinly sliced super tender pork belly, which basically falls apart if you try to pick it up. The pork belly itself is basically 50% fat and 50% meat, so definitely on the heavy side of things.

*Chashumen at Kitaotsuka Ramen, enough pork belly chashu to cover the whole ramen bowl.*

The noodles are classic old school style chukasoba noodles, on the thin side. As a side note, there are also spicy versions of the regular ramen and the chashumen on the menu, as well as variants with 150 grams, 200 grams and 300 grams of noodles.

*Classic medium thickness ramen noodles at Kitaotsuka Ramen.*

My personal recommendation is to go for the 150 grams of noodles chashumen, get some white rice and some extra negi to cut through the richness. After you are done with the noodles, you dump the rice into the leftover soup. At least that's what I will order the next time I go to Kitaotsuka, which will not be too far in the future.

If you are worried about not being able to read the Japanese vending machine, do not worry, they have an English translation above the vending machine for easy ordering.