Shinpuku Saikan

It was a Friday night and I had plans in Kyoto. They were pretty late, and near Kyoto Station, which meant that that I could hit up a ramen shop I'd been meaning to visit for a long time. Kyoto is known for its two types of shoyu ramen, an assari kind and a kotteri kind. The kotteri ramen is perhaps most associated with chain Tenkaippin, whose flagship shop I visited last year. Finally I had a chance to visit the flagship shop of the most famous shop of the assari kind: Shinpuku Saikan.

An old school shop with a line, the only bowl offered was the chuka soba. This kind of traditionalism reminded me favorable of other classic shops, like Shukaen or Ganso Nagahamaya.

金曜日の夜で今日に予定がありました。時間があったので、京都駅の近くにあるラーメン屋さんに行けるかなと思っていました。京都は二つのラーメンの種類で有名です。こってりの醤油だったらひょっとしたら天下一品のチェーン店が一番有名かもしれなくて、去年本店に行きました。ようやくあっさり系が有名な新福菜館に行く機会が出てきました。

「中華そばや」って感じの新福菜館は中華そばぐらいしか提供していません。前行った朱華園と元祖長浜屋に似ていたかな。

The Bowl
Medium yellow noodles, dark shoyu broth, and thin slices of chashu fit the bill of a classic chuka soba shop in my eyes. The broth's hoisin-sauce style flavor and saltiness was too strong to drink in large quantities, but just strong enough to provide a powerful flavor to the soft, tender noodles. The chashu was pretty tough, but the fatty slices were salty and brimming with flavor. This kind of simple, salty ramen is where a lot of mediocre shops go wrong, but good, classic shops nail it.

中太い黄色い麺、暗い醤油スープ、細いチャーシューがあるとやっぱり中華そばですね。海鮮醤っぽいなスープは濃くていっぱい飲む感じがなかったですけど、柔らかい麺に味つけることができました。チャーシューはちょっとかみにくかったですけど、うまかったです。こんなシンプル塩辛いラーメンだったら普通の店はよくミスますけど、クラシック的な店がよく行けます。

Would I Go Again?
Yes.

はい。

Should You Go?
Yes, it's a Kyoto classic.

京都の定番で行った方がいいです。

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新福菜館

Masutani

A while back, a friend told me about a new campaign Yahoo started running called the Ramen Ambassadors.  They were recruiting foreigners in Japan who have a passion for ramen.  Well, I applied and I got in!  I've advertised on facebook already, but check it out if you haven't already!

One of my duties as Osaka's ambassador was to make a video as a promotion.  As Osaka's ambassador (most of the others are up in Tokyo), I decided to go around Osaka and Kyoto and show off different landmarks and nearby ramen shops.  Of course this meant that I had to stop somewhere to eat ramen too.

It had been a long time since I ate in Kyoto Station's Ramen Koji.  Since this was for the video, I decided the best place to go was Kyoto's famous chain Masutani.  They are famous for their shoyu broth with a chicken soup base.

I'll post details below, but check out my promotional video here!

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ますたに
901 Higashishiokōjichō

The Bowl
The soup was a fatty, oily shoyu.  It was a little garlicky, and generally reminiscent of the Jiro-style.  The thing about Jiro-style bowls, is that they are usually more about quality than about quantity.  Without the quantity, Masutani felt like a fairly generic chain-y bowl.  The noodles were thin, straight, and springy, and the chashu was pretty mediocre.

Would I Go Again?
No way.  There are better places in Kyoto Station and better representatives of Kyoto.

Should You Go?
Nah.

Sumire

A couple months earlier I went to visit Tokushima, and my friend there told me that in Kyoto there was a place called Ramen Koji, a single place where there are branches of many favorite ramen shops, similar to Ramen Stadium in Fukuoka.  That alone made it my goal to go check it out.  Then he mentioned that his favorite ramen place was a Sapporo Miso chain called Sumire, that happened to have a shop in Ramen Koji.

Since then, I've always meant to go, but while Kyoto is fairly close to Osaka, it still takes about an hour each way, which along with last train makes it hard to go on a weekday.  Finally, though, a friend from Tokyo came to visit, which was a more than good enough excuse to go check out Kyoto, and stop for ramen before leaving.

They just added two places to Ramen Koji bringing the total to eight, and with this post I've been to but one of them.  I hope that number will increase as I write this blog.

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すみれ
Kyoto Station
Sumire is in Kyoto Station's Ramen Koji, on the tenth floor of the Isetan building.

The Bowl
It had been a while since I had a miso bowl.  For some reason everything I have had recently seems to be tonkotsu or shoyu...
I welcomed the change with Sumire's rich miso broth, which was a little grainy and held thin, springy noodles.  There were tons of toppings; crunchy menma, small cubes of chashu and ground pork that was interspersed with the noodles.  At the end the broth was a bit salty, but the left over pork and bean sprouts that added to the last drop's flavor more than made up for it.

Would I Go Again?
Yes, it was great, but I'd probably try one of the other seven shops in Ramen Koji first.

Should You Go?
Yes, it's right in Kyoto station and you really can't go wrong.