On November 3rd to 7th, “Tokyo Ramen Show 2010” was performed at the plaza of Komazawa Olympic Park in Setagaya, where many ramen shops from all over Japan came to exhibit their ramen.

This is the second time that Tokyo Ramen Show took place. The first time was last year’s May, and though it was raining, approximately 90,000 people came to visit in three days. This year, they extended to 5 days and expected approximately 200,000 visitors.

There were 27 exhibiting shops and I tried the five outstanding ones.

1. Tanaka Shoten X Mentoku Nidaime Tsujita
Tanaka Shoten is located in Adachi-ku and ranks one of the top for its Hakata-style ramen in pork bone soup. Mentoku Nidaime Tsujita is located in Chiyoda-ku, a fiercely competitive area for ramen, and is famous for its pork bone, fish and shellfish broth. Here they cooperated to offer their ramen. It is actually better to say that Miso No Akira, an affiliated shop of Mentoku, was part of the collaboration.

Tastes good and spicy! The first impression of the ramen. Mentoku’s soup consists of Hinai poultry, Rishiri sea tangle, strictly selected pork bone and vegetables, which makes the soup taste rich. The affiliated Miso No Akira offers their soup made of full-bodied miso and visitors could enjoy eating it with strictly selected green seaweed from Yamagata.
The two ramen shops are successful in making the most of their advantages to offer two types of full-bodied soup of pork bone and miso. One should not ignore the green seaweed as well.

The soup with deliciousness, spiciness, and good flavor.

2. Furano Tomikawa
The noodle is made of wheat from Furano grinded with a stone hand mill and local Sakura eggs. Their ramen tastes exactly opposite of that of Tanaka and Tsujita shop. The noodle is absolutely great and the soup is simple taste made of fish broth in order to stress the noodles.

The soup, ingredients, and noodles. Everything is simple but perfectly incorporated.

The noodles are thick enough to have a good bite.

3. Toyama Black Menka Iroha
This ramen was ranked the first in 2009 Tokyo Ramen Show. The soup is made from dried sardines having eaten plankton of good quality in the Toyama bay and the flavor comes from the traditional fish sauce. The soup therefore is full-bodied and perfectly good with the ramen.

The soup tastes rather fresh and simple, hard to imagine from its black color.

Absolutely tastes good with these straight noodles.

4. Saitama Sairock
The soup is made from Saitama miso, peanut, garlic, ginger, and other ingredients being scorched. The flavor of scorched miso and its taste are one of the greatest in the ramen show. The sweetness coming from the peanut adds a unique savor to the ramen.

The thick noodles suiting the strong taste of the soup. The chemistry between the noodles and the soup is absolutely great.

5. Hokuriku Ramen Expo (Himi Ramen and Nannan Tei)
These are the two cooperating shops winning a good reputation during the Hokuriku Ramen Expo. Their ramen is called Sweet Shrimp Ramen. The balance among the soup, noodles, and other ingredients is the most perfect in my opinion. The flavor of shrimps, crispiness of bean sprouts, Welsh onion, and tangle shaved into stringy, paper-thin shavings. All of them are appetizing. If you love fish, you can’t leave here without finishing the soup.