Searching for a line of people instead of the shop's sign might be a faster way to find this ramen shop. If over 30 to 40 people are in line, you are handed a numbered ticket.

Kyoto's Ichijoji neighborhood is said to be a place where ramen-lovers gather. With many universities and student dormitories around the area, it is otherwise known as the "ramen highway". Moreover, due to the several ramen shops that crowd Higashioji-dori Street, it is also recognized as the number one battleground for ramen in the Kansai area.

In the midst of all of this, Menya Gokkei is a famous shop known for its continuous lines since opening in 2011.

Its thick, super-rich soup is reputable for getting you hooked after one bowl. On an especially crowded day, up to 160 people line up around the shop. We decided to speak to the shop's manager while savoring a bowl of this ramen.

Noodles and toppings highlight this robust soup that's powerful enough to withstand the weight of a Chinese soup spoon.

Let's try the signature dish, toridaku. As you can tell from the photo, the noodles seem to be on top of the soup rather than in the soup. This is already an indication of how thick it actually is. Also, toppings that stand out against the soup have been selected. This includes roasted pork shoulder, extra chunky bamboo shoots, and fine strips of leek.

Not being able to help ourselves, we tried sticking a Chinese soup spoon in the soup. According to the shop's manager, "Lately, there's been a sudden increase in customers who stick the Chinese soup spoon into the soup and take pictures."

Finally, it's time to taste. The soup is thick, but it isn't overbearing. The dish is filled with the umami flavor from the chicken. Although there's a slight graininess in texture, the soup has a creamy taste. You can also thoroughly taste the soy sauce flavor.

Also, to not be overpowered by the soup, the noodles are made so that you feel like you're actually eating them.

The custom-made noodles are boiled and taken out when they are still a little hard to achieve this. This contributes to the chewiness in texture. Even after taking the first bite, the noodles maintain their firmness and wrap around the soup.

We also tried akadaku, a dish that adds cayenne pepper to the entire surface of the toridaku bowl. With this dish, you'll catch a whiff of cayenne pepper even before you taste it. It's not extremely spicy, but it definitely has a kick. We recommend this to anyone who wants to try a variation from the original.

Everything is done for the soup. All efforts are concentrated into seeing how much the customers can be satisfied.

After enjoying the flavors provided by one of the popular shops in the prominent Ichijoji, we decided to speak with the shop's manager, Mr. Hironori Sasae. "Our shop doesn't serve side dishes such as Japanese-style fried chicken, we only serve ramen. The noodles and toppings are all made to compliment the soup." We could get a strong sense of particularity for the soup from his words.

However, the soup is under the complete supervision of the owner, and the recipe, as well as the ingredients, have not been shared with Mr. Sasae. "I roughly know that chicken is used and everything is of top quality, but only the owner knows the rest. My job is to stay focused on making ramen and to figure out a way to completely satisfy the customers."

He adds, "We use toridaku as the base for all ramen bowls, so ideally, for our akadaku and gyodaku bowls, we want to charge an extra 50 yen. On the other hand, it's a shame if students who come to try our ramen can only get the toridaku bowl because it's 50 yen cheaper. We want people to get what they want, so we've made everything the same price. We also offer free rice-refills." We could catch a sense of Mr. Sasae's thoughtfulness towards young students.

The shop is a six-minute walk from Ichijoji Station on the Eizan Railway. If you don't want to transfer at Kyoto Station, you can take the Karasuma Line to Matsugasaki Station. From here, it's a 15-minute walk.

Another shop in the area is a bookstore called Keibunsha Ichijoji. This bookstore was the only one in Japan to make it onto the British magazine, The Guardian's 2010 ranking of "The World's 10 Best Bookshops". Because it has many unique shops, this is an area perfect for a stroll.

Menya Inoichi Hanare is the second shop of the famous Menya Inoichi. Differing from the original shop that mainly serves ramen, this shop centers around serving three standard tsukemen along with limited-edition tsukemen dishes.

For three consecutive years, from 2019 to 2021, the shop has been highly rated and consequently chosen for a Bib Gourmand in the Michelin Guide for Kyoto and Osaka.

Another spectacular aspect of this shop is that it can be accessed easily from Kyoto Municipal Subway's Shijo Station as well as Karasuma Station on the Hankyu Kyoto Main Line.

From the broth to the toppings, you can experience traditional Japanese elements with this tsukemen.

The broth used for tsukemen and ramen is made 100% from seafood. This shop boasts blending several different types of seafood flakes, including bonito and mackerel flakes, and carefully boiling them while monitoring the temperature to make a flavorful soup.

This is used to serve tsukesoba, a dish where buckwheat noodles called soba are served separately with a soup. The luxurious dish of Japanese Black beef tsukesoba (black soy sauce-based) incorporates burdock, shimeji mushroom, as well as top-quality marbled Japanese Black beef.

The melt-in-your-mouth Japanese Black beef is boiled thoroughly in the shop's original sweet and spicy soup. This dish is reminiscent of sukiyaki, a traditional Japanese beef and vegetable hotpot in sweet soy sauce. You can also enjoy the texture with the many ingredients, including burdock and shimeji mushrooms!

The shop's original noodles are made from whole wheat flour in a quern stone. Although they're chewy, the noodles aren't overly thick, making them very easy to eat. This is a highly satisfying dish where you can even enjoy just the noodles or the soup on their own.

When adding some Yuzu citrus to this dish, it becomes more refined through the fruit's slightly sweet and refreshing fragrance.

Tsukesoba with a white soy sauce-based clear fish broth is another popular dish. The pork belly fat melts as its boiled into the soup. This fills this dish with a refined umami flavor. You can enjoy this refreshing bowl with roughly grated daikon radish, green onion, and the slightly sour Japanese citrus, sudachi.

Along with the finishing touch of adding bonito flakes, this dish can be enjoyed by eating the noodles together with ingredients in the soup.

The shop manager is Mr. Riku Aizawa. He shared, "All the dishes we serve have a lot of ingredients. We would like it if you had the noodles and ingredients in the soup together."

The shop's bonito flakes, which are shaved to a thin 0.01mm, are a top-quality product from Ibusuki in Kagoshima Prefecture. The umami-packed honkarebushi, a type of fermented, dried bonito flake, is used. Once shaved, you are enveloped by the light aroma of bonito. Mr. Aizawa added, "Please enjoy these delicate thin flakes that melt in your mouth."

In addition to there being an English menu, the staff can speak basic Chinese and English.

This is the third ramen shop of the Seaburanokami chain. This chain is famous for serving ramen that adds pork back fat as a topping. Here, a naturally popular dish is the pork back fat ramen.

This dish boils pork back fat for three to four hours as a way to draw out its sweetness. In addition, the tonkotsu soy sauce ramen originally from Yokohama called <@Iekei|i@ > ramen is another extremely popular choice.

The easy access of this shop, being a five-minute walk from Karasuma Station on the Hankyu Railway, is also an attractive aspect.

Firstly, we tried the ginger soy sauce soba with pork back fat, a dish that has been served since the shop's opening. The immediate and strong taste of ginger in the first bite will have you hooked. This isn't surprising since ginger flavoring oil in addition to grated ginger is used in this dish.

The soup is filled with varying umami flavors drawn out from a chicken, pork thigh and shin bones otherwise known as genkotsu, as well as vegetables. This results in a light but flavorfully rich soup. The blend of two soy sauces from Wakayama and Kyoto are also distinct flavors that add to this dish.

Next, we tried the shop's signature dish, Iekei ramen. Although the umami flavor and aroma of the pork bone broth is significant, there isn't any unpleasant odor. There's no doubt that you'll finish this bowl in no time.

What's more, the short and flat noodles go perfectly with the soup. The toppings of roasted pork shoulder, boiled spinach, and seaweed are the finishing touches needed to make a standard Iekei ramen.

Initially serving pork back fat ramen, this shop turned Iekei ramen into their specialty.

"The reaction to Iekei ramen was pretty incredible," says the shop's manager, Mr. Takamasa Nakano. The shop started with their main dish being the famous Tsubame-Sanjo Ramen, a type of ramen with a soy sauce base, thick noodles, and a layer of pork back fat from Tsubame-Sanjo in Niigata Prefecture.

Once they added Iekei ramen to their limited-edition menu, it became a great hit. Since there aren't many shops serving the same kind of ramen in the city, it became extremely popular and part of the standard menu. "As of now, we are an Iekei ramen shop," Mr. Nakano told us while chuckling.

If the shop becomes popular among foreign tourists again, it plans on making an English, Chinese, and Korean menu.

Wajouryomen Sugari is the second shop of the famous tsukemen shop Menya Takakura Nijo. It can be easily accessed from both Shijo Station on the Kyoto Municipal Subway and Karasuma Station on the Hankyu Railway.

The three dishes of ramen, tsukemen, and curry tsukemen all come with an option to add toppings such as offal, Japanese Black beef, and roasted pork.

There are also two options for the shop's original noodles, original or yuzu citrus. The shop is said to be extremely popular, having had continuous lines formed in front of it for over ten years. Most of the people who make it here order the offal tsukemen. More specifically, the offal used is either beef intestine or pork tripe called motsu.

Straight away, we decided to try the motsu tsukemen. The soup is a mix of a seafood broth and tori paitan broth. Tori paitan is a rich and creamy, slow-cooked chicken broth.

The seafood broth is mainly made out of bonito along with some other ingredients which include flying fish and sea cabbage. Kyoto-born Chidori vinegar is incorporated into the rich soup, creating a mild flavor that's slightly acidic.

Aspire to make motsu hotpot! Each ingredient used is carefully thought out.

Mr. Ryo Kajiya, the shop's manager, told us, "I wanted to make something as close to motsu hotpot as possible, so I'm very particular about the toppings I use."

Sure enough, the standard ingredients for this ramen of cabbage and chives seasoned with lemon and soy sauce remind you of a motsu hotpot.

Previously, green onions and garlic shoots were also used as toppings, but in order to make it even more like a motsu hotpot, the manager has currently made some changes.

The overwhelmingly popular motsu used is from a part of the small intestine called the hoso. A characteristic of this motsu is that it is plump and fatty. The taste of whole soybean soy sauce combined with the umami flavor that seeps out from the fat is just spectacular.

The two types of the shop's original noodles, original and yuzu, are very carefully prepared. Because the shop wants to keep the flavor from the flour, it doesn't use lye water which usually has a distinctive taste. "We've continued to make improvements to everything, little by little.", shares Mr. Kajiya.

Vegan Ramen UZU KYOTO is a vegan ramen specialty shop where not only can you enjoy ramen but also the artwork and space itself. The dishes abstain entirely from using any meat, fish, or other animal products.

However, there is a depth to the flavor, receiving many reviews with people saying it's the best ramen they've ever had.

Plus, it's been gaining popularity since it has collaborated with teamLab, a company that produces digital content by using the latest technology.

Normally, the artwork projected onto the wall could not be seen at the price you pay for a bowl of ramen. The wondrous image seems to change the direction it moves in depending on the angle you view it from. Enjoy this experience in a quiet space along with a bowl of ramen.

Vegan Ramen with Overwhelming Umami Flavor: The carefully extracted soup stock is a knockout!

The signature dish at this shop is the vegan soy sauce ramen. The soup consists of soaking sea cabbage and shitake mushrooms for over 36 hours to completely extract the umami flavor.

In addition to this soup, eight other types of vegetables are added to the bowl. Because the umami flavor is so strong, you won't realize it's vegan unless you're told.

The slightly hot ramen that uses spicy miso is also popular. This dish adds onions as a topping.

"I want the dining experience at this space to be a part of an installation.", says the owner, Mr. Ryo Kataoka. He has constructed the restaurant in a way so that you can experience beautiful aesthetics along with beautiful food.

Mr. Kataoka shared his feelings on not only the ramen but also on the space itself. "By dining in an artistic space, we are able to awaken a special sensibility that only exists in humans. This sensibility is one that allows us to appreciate beautiful aesthetics as well as beautiful food. I also hope that by getting to experience vegan culture, it will act as an opportunity for people to think about sustainability, nature conservation, as well as health problems. Because of this wish, I would especially like it if people who aren't vegan would try this new experience of dining and delicious tastes."

There is an English menu available. Also, all staff are able to communicate in English.

Kyoto Gion Ramen Muraji, run by a female manager, is situated in one of the back alleyways of Kyoto. This shop is only a five-minute walk from Gion-Shijo Station on the Keihan Electric Railway. It's effortless to stop by as a tourist because it is close to areas filled with Kyoto's charm. This includes Kawaramachi and Gion Shirakawa.

Because of the very meticulous way the soup is made and the dishes are plated, the shop took two years of preparation until they were ready to open. You can find traditional crafts throughout the relaxing space.

Enjoy the cozy taste of the tori paitan soup.

Tori paitan ramen creates a rich but not overbearing, refined soup. The taste is highly acclaimed due to the cozy feeling you get after trying it. This is due to the umami from the soup, made from carefully selected, domestic chicken carcass, wrapping around the straight noodles.

In addition to this, the shop offers black ramen with a soy sauce base, a visually fun ramen topped with a lemon slice called lemon ramen, and Muraji's tsukemen in which copious amounts of seafood flavor wrap around the chewy noodles.

The aromatic, deep-fried tofu and sake lee ramen is a dish only served in the fall. This seasonally-limited taste is very popular.

You can stop by this shop without any worries due to there being a menu in English, Chinese, and Korean along with English-speaking staff. We also recommend you stop by the sister shop called Tsukesoba Muraji. This shop opened in 2020 and can be found inside Nishiki Market.

Gion Duck Noodles is a shop that solely uses emojis to express its name. The head chef comes from a French culinary background and serves ramen that conveys the true deliciousness of duck. The shop uses Kishu duck from Wakayama Prefecture. This superb ingredient has a nice layer of fat as well as fine portions of red meat.

Because the shop brings in a stock of whole duck straight from a duck ranch, the ingredient is abundantly used in the soup in addition to adding roasted duck as a topping.

It is a four-minute walk from Gion-Shijo Station on the Keihan Railway Line. What's more, it's right next to Yasaka Shrine, so you can stop by on your way to or from this tourist attraction.

The umami flavor from the duck, homemade noodles, and Japanese pepper come together harmoniously.

The signature dish of duck ramen boils duck and meat into a superb soup. In order for the noodles to stand up to the quality of the soup, the shop has made flavorful, thin noodles made from German rye as well as domestic whole wheat flour.

Other popular dishes include tsukemen in a tangerine or berry sauce with each regular-sized bowl offered at 1,000 yen (excluding tax) as well as duck rice that's cooked in a duck soup with each small-sized bowl available from 450 yen (excluding tax). There's also a block of braised duck for 3,500 yen (excluding tax) that you can buy as a souvenir.

Kyoto boasts an endless variety of different ramens, ranging from super-rich tori paitan to Japanese-style tsukemen dishes. Ramen shops can be found in areas such as the bustling Kawaramachi District as well as Ichijoji where you can take in the pleasant views from the Eizan Electric Railway. Why not walk around and enjoy some ramen while sightseeing?

*Depending on the situation, there may be some changes regarding business hours, holidays, and service methods. Please check the official site of each restaurant before heading out.

Text by: Efeel