Ramen Jiro Keikyu Kawasaki / ラーメン二郎京急川崎店 - Kawasaki

*A bowl of sho (小) ramen at Ramen Jiro Keikyu Kawasaki with no extra veggies.*

Ramen Jiro Keikyu Kawasaki (ラーメン二郎京急川崎店) is named after the nearby Kawasaki station which is run by the Keikyu corporation. The shop is a stiff 7-8 minute walk from Keikyu Kawasaki station or a bit more than 10 minutes from JR Kawasaki station, so quite easy access from almost everywhere in Tokyo or Yokohama.

*The front of the ramen shop Ramen Jiro Keikyu Kawasaki.*

My best description for the Keikyu Kawasaki Ramen Jiro would be “the perfect beginner Jiro”, since the atmosphere in the shop is relatively relaxed and tame in comparison to other shops. There’s also some characteristics that make it more accessible to beginners.

First, you get a spoon, which isn’t a thing at all Ramen Jiro.

Second, there is tare on the counter, which means you can adjust the saltiness of your soup to your liking. Even when ordering karame (extra tare seasoning), you only get a tiny splash on top of your ramen, since you can add as much as you like by yourself.

The third point would be the fact that the portion itself is quite manageable, nothing extreme in terms of noodle amount or meat.

Could this be the shop for your first Ramen Jiro experience?

*You can clearly see the extra seabura pork back fat on top, but the garlic is exactly hidden on the opposite side.*

My order of the day was Sho Ramen with a ninniku abura karame call, which means I want extra garlic, extra pork back fat on top and extra tare seasoning splashed on top.

*In Ramen Jiro terms, you are looking at a relatively unemulsified pork broth.*

The soup is, for the uninitiated, a heavy tonkotsu pork soup, which also has the chashu and sheets of pork back fat stewed in it. The resulting soup at this shop on this day was quite unemulsified, which I’m a fan of. In Jiro terms, the soup was relatively lightly seasoned despite my karame, which makes sense if you watch him do the karame, which I would describe as a 1-2 milliliter splash of tare on top, which isn’t a problem because there’s tare on the counter.

*A good look at the noodles of Ramen Jiro in Kawasaki.*

Noodles are on the thin side for a Ramen Jiro, but still quite substantial and thick when compared to most other ramen noodles out there. Even though they are a bit thinner, they still offered a nice and satisfying chew. My tip is to dig out noodles at the beginning and kind of mix the noodles and veggies, so you have both noodles and veggies with every bite.

*Super tender and thinly cut pork chashu.*

From my seat at the counter I could see big logs of pork sitting in the roaring boil of the tonkotsu broth. The pork is boiled for several hours in the broth and then floats in the tare seasoning for some time, before getting cut into relatively thin slices and added as topping. I personally would have wished for more substantial pieces of meat, so I can take chunky bites. But the meat here was perfectly tender and well seasoned.

*A view into one of the more beginner friendly Ramen Jiro shops*

Overall I would probably not put this shop in the lower half of my personal Ramen Jiro ranking, but it provides a good average Jiro experience and can be recommended as a first shop for Jiro beginners.