Ganso Aka Noren Secchan

I came to Kyushu for the Saga international hot air balloon festival, but I stayed in Fukuoka. And I wasn't leaving Fukuoka without some good ramen. I did some research on the best shop in Tenjin I could find, and the first that came up with famous Ganso Aka Noren Secchan Ramen. I'm not sure why I hadn't been here before, but after a long trip through Saga I was ready for a full set, complete with fried rice and gyoza.

佐賀の国際熱気球フェスのために九州に行きましたけど、福岡に泊まりました。せっかく福岡に行ったので、本場の豚骨ラーメンも食べなあかんと思いました。いろいろ調べて、「元祖赤のれん節ちゃんラーメン」が出てきました。有名なので、なんで行ったことがなかったかわかりませんでした。とにかく、佐賀の日帰りの後お腹がすいてきましたから定食にしました。

The Bowl
There's something different about the tonkotsu in Fukuoka from the ones I've had in Osaka and Tokyo. Oh, there are some good ones on Honshu, but they seem to know just how to balance the ingredients in Hakata. The soup with thin, but flavorful; there was a bit of oil, but it wasn't drenched in it. It was light, begging me to keep eating without ever getting full. With a soup as fresh and drinkable as this, it's no surprise that Hakata ramen always have bunches of thin noodles. The chashu was nothing special, but that's not the main attraction here. The gyoza and fried rice too were solid if par for the course; a bit garlickly and cinnamony, respectively.

やっぱり福岡のラーメンは大阪と東京のラーメンと違います。本州にもうまいのもありますけど、博多的なバランスと離れています。このラーメンのスープは半透明で以外とさっぱりとしました。脂ぽかったですけど、ちょっと抑えたので胃もたれまでもなりませんでした。こんなさっぱりとしたスープを食べると、なんで細い麺が使われているかすぐわかります。チャーシューはまあまあ普通でしたけど、長所はスープでした。餃子も焼き飯も美味しかったです。

Would I Go Again?
Yes.

はい。

Should You Go?
Yes.

はい。

That bowl left me so refreshed that I was happy to eat a cup of gelato at Samurai Gelato afterwards.

さっぱりとしたラーメンで、食べた後すぐにサムライジェラート〆にしました。

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元祖赤のれん 節ちゃんラーメン

Shinsen

Sometimes one ramen shop a day is not enough. Earlier in the day my brother and I stopped at my favorite shop in Fukuoka, Isshin Furan, but we were still hungry in the afternoon. Canal City offers a wide range of ramen shops, and though I hit up a couple of them on my last visit, there were still plenty to be tried.

Shinsen is a tonkotsu shoyu shop from Kanazawa in Ishikawa Prefecture. I had never heard of Kanazawa-style ramen before, and most of the rest of the shops were more similar to the Fukuoka tonkotsu we had for lunch, so we decided to give Shinsen a try.

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金澤濃厚中華そば 神仙
Fukuoka-ken, Fukuoka-shi, Hakata-ku, Sumiyoshi, １丁目２

The Bowl
Wow, this was a bowl that tasted exactly like "tonkotsu shoyu" sounds. It was like someone took a bowl of tonkotsu ramen and poured a dollop of soy sauce into it. It wasn't offensive, but it was strong and lacked the subtle mixture of my favorite tonkotsu shoyu places. The noodles were surprisingly hard, and the chashu and menma were both decent.

Would I Go Again?
Nah. There are more places to try in Canal City anyway.

Should You Go?
If you make it all the way to Fukuoka, there are far better bowls to try than this one.

Ganso Nagahamaya

It was the first full day of my brother's and my Fukuoka adventure, so we had to choose a ramen shop to hit up. The previous time I went to Fukuoka I had somehow missed Nagahama, so with that in mind we set out for the classic Ganso Nagahamaya first thing.

I've had a lot of wacky types of ramen, or interesting takes on classic styles of ramen, but Ganso Nagahamaya was the exact opposite of those. An old-school shop with vending machines with just one thing to order: ramen. At an absurdly cheap 400 yen, how can you go wrong?

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元祖 長浜屋
Fukuoka-ken, Fukuoka-shi, Chūō-ku, Nagahama, ２丁目５

The Bowl
This bowl was even lighter than the bowl I had at the food stall the previous night. The broth was very light; it was practically just oil meant to flavor the noodles. The noodles were thin and hard like I've grown to expect in Fukuoka tonkotsu. The thin slices of chashu were very juicy. I plowed through my noodles but drinking all of the oil-like broth would have been ill-advised at best, and suicide at worst.

Would I Go Again?
It was good, I'd like to try it again.

Should You Go?
It's an original, and it's super cheap!

Pyonkichi

My brother visiting meant that this was a time of travel. We had eaten bowls of ramen in Tokyo, had our fair share of soup in Osaka and Kyoto, but now it was time for a trip to Kyushu. The first night in Fukuoka means that we can only do one thing: go to a food stall. We ordered some ramen and their recommendation of crispy gyoza.

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屋台屋ぴょんきち
Fukuoka-ken, Fukuoka-shi, Chūō-ku, Tenjin, １丁目

The Bowl
The bowl was a pretty standard tonkotsu, but it reminded me how different Fukuoka's tonkotsu can be. The thin chashu and thin noodles were all easy to eat, and the broth was light and refreshing, unlike the tonkotsu I'm used to eating. Instead of a full meal, a snack to get you through your next beer.

The gyoza, on the other hand, were great. They were crispy and small enough to pop in your mouth one after another.

Would I Go Again?
I would almost go back just for the gyoza. But I'd sooner hit another food stall.

Should You Go?
You should go to a food stall, you don't have to make it Pyonkichi.

Shodai Hidechan

A vacation's not over until it's over.  With a few hours remaining before my friend had to catch his shinkansen home, we decided to make one last attempt at a bowl of ramen.  We headed back to Canal City's Raumen Stadium, where we previously ate Toyama Black but this time went for a more classic Fukuoka-style tonkotsu.  As with the previous time, I was too full for a full bowl, but the mini ramen was the right size.


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初代秀ちゃん
Shodai Hidechan is inside Canal City's Ramen Stadium.

The Bowl
Yet another rich tonkotsu broth, but much thicker than Isshin Furan and the other Hakata bowls I had.  It was pretty heavy and reminiscent of Muttepo, the king of thick pork ramen.  There was a lot of oil, green onions and bean sprouts, which really came through in the flavor of the soup.  The chashu were thin, fatty strips that melted right in to the thick broth.

Would I Go Again?
It doesn't hold a candle to Muttepo back in Kansai, but it was still very good.  If I lived in Fukuoka I'd probably check it out again, but with Muttepo so close by I don't see a reason to.

Should You Go?
If you're in Fukuoka for a while, it's worth a stop, but if you're going to be in Kansai or Tokyo, there are better options.

Isshin Furan

It was my final day in Fukuoka, so I started to feel a bit sad about having to go back to work the next day.  That was temporarily relieved when my friend from Fukuoka, having discovered that I love ramen the day before, decided to bring us to her favorite ramen restaurant.

There were four different colors you could choose from: the standard black, a more mild white, a miso red, and a shio yellow.  Although I was tempted by the red, for my first time here I had to go with the black.  They also let you choose the hardness of the noodles and how rich (read: oily) the broth is; normal, rich, or super-rich.  I went with hard noodles and rich broth.


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一心不乱
Fukuoka-ken Fukuoka-shi Chūō-ku Daimyō ２丁目６−５

The Bowl
The broth was thin and oily, but full of a rich porky flavor.  It was the classic Hakata style I had been looking for; not as stinky as Taiho, but thicker than Hana.  It reminded me a lot of Ippudo, but just a bit more balanced.  I ordered an extra set of noodles midway through the meal, and while normally that would really slow me down, I found myself wanting more even after downing all the soup.  The noodles that came with the bowl were thin and straight, but the extra ones were curly.  They didn't taste all that different, but it was nice to have both.  The chashu was juicy and tender, and the kikurage were chewy and crunchy.

Would I Go Again?
This was quite possibly the best tonkotsu bowl I've ever had.  Next time I'm in Fukuoka I'll be sure to stop by.

Should You Go?
If you like Ippudo and that style of ramen, you should go here.  If you don't...you should still go.

Hana

My second day in Fukuoka was pretty laid back.  I checked out the Yahoo! Dome (where the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks play), walked more around Tenjin, and hung out in the nearby Ohari park.  Some friends and I went to this gyoza shop where beers and gyoza were 100Y each, so although I wanted to eat ramen for dinner, this was too good of a deal to pass up.  It started getting late, but I was not to be stopped, so I had my friend bring us to a yatai, food stalls that Fukuoka is famous for.  As was the theme for this trip, though I wasn't particularly hungry, I ate.

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華
Fukuoka-ken Fukuoka-shi Chūō-ku Tenjin ２丁目１４−１３

The Bowl
Compared with the ramen I ate the previous day (Taiho and Toyama Black), this was much thinner.  Its pork taste was not as rich with the pork bone flavor as Taiho, but it was very refreshing at that point in the night.  The noodles were thin and chewy; I would have preferred them a bit harder as you can usually get in Hakata, but there were crunchy slices of kikurage to make up for it.

Would I Go Again?
The ramen was very refreshing, and I love yatais, but next time I'm in Fukuoka I'll try another stand.

Should You Go?
You definitely wouldn't go wrong by checking Hana out, but judging by the large number of yatais, there's bound to be some similar-but-better ramen out there.

Toyama Black

Just a few hours after my trip to Kurume, I found myself in Fukuoka, wandering around and exploring the city.  I went into a mall not too far from the main station, Hakata station, Canal City.  Malls aren't the most exciting place to go while on vacation in another city, but I had read about a place called Raumen Stadium, and even though I was still full from Taiho, I wanted to take a look.

Now I know that I came all the way to Fukuoka, and if you've read the title of this post you'll recognize that what I ate for this meal was not Hakata tonkotsu ramen, but rather Toyama shoyu ramen.  I didn't think I was going to eat ramen twice in one day, but here I was with my friend at Ramen Stadium.  I couldn't stomach a full bowl of tonkotsu, but I was able to be convinced to go for a mini bowl of Toyama shoyu.


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富山ブラック
Fukuoka-ken Fukuoka-shi Hakata-ku Sumiyoshi １丁目２−２２
Toyama Black is located inside Canal City's Ramen Stadium.

The Bowl
I got a mini ramen, which is the classic Toyama black style.  The broth was, unsurprisingly, black.  It tasted strongly of soy sauce, and much richer than the kind you put on sushi.  It had a bit of a roasted edge to it; I had a hard time putting my finger on it, but it worked well with the soy sauce flavor. The noodles were medium sized and fairly generic; they weren't all that good, but they went decently with the broth.  The menma was very crunchy, and the chashu, although salty and not that tender, also did a good job of absorbing the soup.

Would I Go Again?
Toyama black was not my favorite ramen of the trip, but I've never had shoyu ramen quite this rich before.  The roasted flavor really stuck with me, and I would definitely go back for more.

Should You Go?
This is a ramen that's worth trying.  There are plenty of better bowls, and I wouldn't stop there if you're just briefly in Fukuoka, but there's quite a few of them in the country.  If you're looking for something a bit different, and especially if you like soy sauce, check it out.