Great ramen in Tokyo
 

The place I used to like in Ebisu evidently wasn't liked by others as it has gone out of business. Anyone got any good recommendations?

Kabuki-cho, where there are enough Hokkaido origin people living on the fringes of society to guarantee quality. Just follow your gut feeling once there.

LOL....

the question is rather like, hey, where can i find a good place to have a pint of beer in Tokyo....[A....well, it depends].

OP, what style of ramen do you like? what styles of ramen have you had?

there are a plethora of sites that seem to be dedicated to this.

This is like asking "what kind of pizza do you like?" (but probably more so). There are so many different types of soup (shoyu, shio, tonkotsu, gyokai, etc. in a variety of consistencies), noodles (thin, fat, straight, kinked, etc.), and ways to eat it (noodles in soup, noodles on the side, no soup, etc.), so it would help if you let us know what your preferences are.

Limiting one's search simply to Ebisu would miss out on a ton of excellent ramen elsewhere.

What good is a ton of ramen elsewhere if you're in Ebisu?
(And at this time, that's the only thing that I can guess might make a place worth considering for Richard. Now, if he would tell us that he wants miso, or shio, or shoyu, or some Hokkaido deal with corn and whatnot ... we might have something else to go on).

Well, the OP did ask for "Great ramen in Tokyo"... That being said, Afuri or Ippudo are both in Ebisu and aren't too bad, IMO.

Believe it or not, my favorite ramen in Tokyo at the moment is a tiny underground hole in the wall called ABC Ramen in Ginza. Their miso ramen is amazing, the chahan is great and they have Blair's hot sauce on every table. Never seen a gaijin there despite that it is unbelievably located on the main drag buried amongst all the glitzy stores.

Highly recommend avoiding their restroom.

And FWIW, NH's in flight Ippudo ramen is crap.

The "ramen in Tokyo" question is definitely a "how long is a piece of string" equivalent.

Nevertheless, I've been following a friend's daughter's recent experiences. She went to Japan with her boyfriend and explored Tokyo and towards the West for a while cataloguing the food she ate. They ate Ramen nearly every day and the photos were shocking. There is a lot of bad (and I mean really bad) ramen in Tokyo. Gut feeling (and boy does her boyfriend have guts in abundance) doesn't work for everyone when it comes to lunch time.

Only decent looking meal they had in their entire stay was some Tsukemen/tsukesoba at Kyoto station which they confirmed was their favourite.

So if you are going to spend a bit of time in Japan you may as well jot down a few places where the ramen is worth trying, just so you don't waste your time (and fur up your arteries) with the crap that's on offer. Eating ramen won't make you live longer, make sure it's worth it.

If I were to eat ramen again once, the place I would go to is Kururi in Ichigaya
http://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1309/A130904/13000475/

You could try Kyujyuku in Ebisu or Taro Ramen in Hiroo. Ippudo is another choice but not my favorite even though I seem to go there a lot.

Or you can go to the http://www.raumen.co.jp/english/ and taste various types.

I had ramen today, it wasn't so good. I am averaging a new store every week for the past 4 months I have been living in Japan. Still haven't decided what is great ramen yet.

Ichiran is a chain place that's a safe choice.

Lots of little great hole-in-wall ramen places in Ikebukuro.


It's okay imo. I enjoy it. Enjoy it more than their meal, actually. The soup comes out pretty good, but the noodle is where it gets butchered compared to the real deal. But overall better than just about any ramen I've had in the States.

I won't recommend this place, it's simply a glorified food court and you need to pay to enter and you need to pay for your ramen. There is nothing about it that really resembles a museum.

While you can order smaller sized ramen, the portions are still pretty big, and there isn't a communal sitting area where you can order ramen from all the various shops and try a little bit of everything.

Link to the review I've done on TA http://www.tripadvisor.com.sg/ShowUs...ure_Kanto.html

that is a fair review. i would have loved to have been able to get a small "taster" from each place....