- [Will] In this Going
Awesome Places ramen series, I travel to Tokyo, Japan, to learn just what makes a bowl
of ramen exceptional and to discover the art and passion that goes into each one. And in order to find the best one, we try five unique ramen styles. Hey what's up guys, this is Will from Going Awesome Place, and I'm back, for another video, all about ramen, but this time, focused on
the different styles of ramen that you can find in the city of Tokyo from the super popular to hidden gems, I'll be showing you the
spots that you gotta visit. If you haven't watched it yet, make sure you watch our feature on Michelin-starred and
rated ramen restaurants. But if you are too lazy, well, I guess you're here already. I'm back with Hiroshi-san, of Ramen Beast. We're gonna be crushing more
bowls of ramen, are you ready? - Yeah, I'm ready. - All right, let's do this. - Yep, let's do it. - We're in the neighborhood of Shinjuku and behind me, is Fuunji. So what is this one all about? - [Hiroshi] It's really
famous for tsukemen. - [Will] Tsukemen? - Yeah, you know tsukemen? - I only know about it a bit, but what do I need to know about tsukemen? How does it work, how is it different? - It's like, the noodles
and the soup is separated. And then people have to dip the noodle in the soup, and then slurp. - And so I heard that tsukemen is something that you have
in the summer, usually, 'cause it's a cool noodle, right? - Yeah, yeah, that's right. - But what makes this place so popular? - So using the chicken and
gyokai, like, fish soup, so it's really smooth and easy to crush. - Okay, easy to crush,
I like easy to crush. Let's go in. So, how do you say it, tsukem...? - [Hiroshi] Tsukemen.
- [Will] Tsukemen. Okay, so right now, the first batch. He has to bring it into-- - The water.
- Cool it off. - [Hiroshi] Yeah, cold water. - [Will] For the tsukemen. Does he only do that for the ramen? - [Hiroshi] The shaking? - [Will] Like four
minutes twenty, exactly? (reverse DJ scratch) The giant chopsticks, too. So yeah, tell us about this. - [Hiroshi] Yeah, the fish powder on top, egg, seaweed. - [Will] The soup is made out of-- - [Hiroshi] The chicken. - [Will] So it's chicken broth. - [Hiroshi] Yeah, chicken and fish. - [Will] Chicken and fish, okay, and then? - [Hiroshi] No pork. There's no pork in this soup. - [Will] They also put
menma and all that stuff? - [Hiroshi] Yeah, menma
and chashu in soup. - [Will] Oh, there's
chashu in there as well. So do you mix the powder in it? Okay, so you mix the powder in. So just, dip it in? - [Hiroshi] Yep. - And then I eat?
- And slurp. - Slurp right away. It's actually really good. - [Hiroshi] It's really
nice broth, and smooth. - Yeah, yeah, it's nice
and creamy as well. - [Hiroshi] Yeah, right. - Well, it's packed with stuff. You have the menma. Wow, look at that. Another egg perfection. - [Hiroshi] Get it, get it. - Get it all in. I didn't think I'd really
like this kind of ramen. Okay, so this is dashi, which
is just the very basic broth. Is it still the same chicken and-- - No, no, different. - A different type of broth, okay. Just a little bit, oh,
so you don't need to dilute it too much. - [Hiroshi] You mix it. - Now you've made it really spicy. Still very thick, but. Okay, so now that we finished our meal, how do we say thank you? - Ah, gochi-so-sama-deshita. - Okay, all right, let's do this. Gochi-so-sama-deshita. (laughs) (light jazzy music) So right by Kanda station
is this ramen shop. It's called Kikanbo and they're known for their spicy miso. But for those who don't know, my tolerance for spice isn't that high. So just in case, I went
over to the 7-Eleven, and bought this carton of milk. All right, so what can we
expect from Kikanbo today? - So, we can try the
spicy miso ramen here. - Okay, so miso, first of all, okay, and then spicy, you said spicy,
which I'm scared of, but. - No, that's fine. Customer can choose the spice level. And plus, like, numb level. - Numb
- Numb level. - So regular level, how bad is it? Am I gonna be, spicy sweats?
- Not that bad. - Or like, what's happening? - If you don't like
spicy, maybe you sweat. But I think it's okay. - Okay, but you did say earlier, that my mouth is, I'm
not gonna feel anything. My tongue, nothing. - If you go like devil
level, yeah, for sure, - Okay, okay, I'm not so sure
about this, but here goes. Wish us luck, wish us luck! Here we go. - [Will] And once you enter in, the taiko drums start beating. (taiko drums beating) - [Will] So they put the bean sprouts. What are they making? - [Hiroshi] Soup, the miso soup. - [Will] This is part of the miso soup? - [Hiroshi] Yeah, yeah, the
miso paste and that's pork back fat. - [Will] So those are all the
spices - [Hiroshi] They bring it together. - [Hiroshi] Soup is for...
made from pork and chicken. And other soup is made from fish. - [Will] For a little
bit of splash protection. Wow, look at that. Juice piece of chashu, this is massive! It's like a friggin bowl of pork belly. - [Hiroshi] And you got the bean sprouts. - [Will] What is this type
of corn called, in Japanese? - [Hiroshi] Yangukōn. - [Will] It's supposed to
resemble a kikanbo, and I love it. I expected this to be just like, fist over hand kind of spice, but it's got a lot of flavor
to it, it's quite complex. Don't get me wrong though. Mouth-numbing, I'm already
feeling a bit of the fire but it's not the kind of spice where, I'm sweating a lot. I can handle this, I can handle this. A little bit of an oasis
here with the pork belly. Such a nice thick cut right there. It's nice and sweet, I like that. Really deep flavor. Like the spices are almost very earthy, wooden kind of flavor to it. - Yeah, maybe you'll see that there's a three different thickness. - Oh, in the noodles. Damn. Whoo! So good, and so bad at the same time. I don't know if you
can see this right now, but I got sweat like all over here. I have sweat coming down my nose. Sweating all over. Oh my god, I need all the milk. Just kidding, it actually wasn't that bad. So I had the medium-medium spice, and yes, my mouth was numb, and yes, I was super sweaty. But honestly, it wasn't that kind of spice that really burned your mouth off or it was just uncontrollable. So it really wasn't that bad. I think you can handle it. - [Will] Next, we take the JR train and make our way out to Kichijoji. - Now you guys might know Kichijoji as an off the beaten path
place for street food. But they've actually got
a really good ramen shop right behind me, and
it's called Musashiya. So tell us why this
particular shop in Kichijoji. - Yeah, I wanna introduce Ie-Kei, Yokohama Ie-kei style ramen. - [Will] Okay cool, we
haven't had that before yet. - [Hiroshi] Yeah not yet, so which means, the thick tonkotsu soup with soy sauce so we call it tonkotsu shoyu style. And then customer can choose how hard noodles or--
- Oh, you have choice. - Yeah, yeah, more oil, or. - [Will] Okay, so it's fully customizable. - [Hiroshi] So customers
have options here. - I like that, I like that. Okay, I'm excited to try this one. Let's go on in inside,
see what it's all about. - Yeah, Ie-Kei is kind
of, the common thing is, so the customer can choose to how thick the taste. - So thickness.
- Thickness. And the oil. - There's oil. - Yeah, and how hard the noodles. - [Will] The noodles are,
so how firm they are. What is kind of the recommended-- - So basically, I'll order just normal, futsu
- futsu-futsu-futsu So thickness of the soup,
oiliness of the soup, and then thickness of
the noodles, okay, cool. Oh wow, spinach, vegetables. Okay, we'll see how it is. (slurps) - [Will] Really nice and creamy. - [Will] These noodles are so different. - [Hiroshi] Right? - They're nice and firm,
but medium thickness? I don't know, this is
closer to the firmness that we had for most of our other ramen. This is definitely like a firmer, like al dente type of noodle, I like it, this is really good. Is there a proper way to have seaweed? Like, do you dunk it in? All right, so you'll
get everything in there. Wish they had more pieces
of the chashu here. - [Will] Musushiya is
the perfect place to pair with the Kichijoji street food tour, which you could find out
more, on the blog. Next up! - Now we're in Kita-Senju in
the northeast part of Tokyo and this is a ramen shop called Matador. All right, Hiroshi-san, tell
me about this spot here. - Yeah, this ramen shop,
serving a beef ramen. - Okay, beef ramen, that's new. There's probably not a lot
of beef ramen in Tokyo. - It's not a lot, it's not a lot in Tokyo. It's rare. - Okay, is everything beef? - Yeah, everything is beef. - Okay, from the soup base-- - Yeah, soup base, the topping. - To toppings, and that means this is actually perfect for
anyone that doesn't eat pork, they can finally have ramen. - Yeah I think so, yeah. - Okay, and anything we
should watch out, inside, things they do differently? - Just check out the, while they're-- - Shaking noodles? Yeah, that's kind of unique. Okay, I hope you're
hungry, are you hungry? - Yeah, why not, why not? - All right, let's go. - [Hiroshi] That's the roast beef. - That's roast beef?
- Yeah. - [Will] Because they use beef,
it's a sweeter taste to it. I feel like in Japanese cuisine, everything is almost like an art form. He's like putting on a show, almost. - [Hiroshi] Yeah, yeah,
that one is the clear one. - [Will] It wouldn't be a chicken
oil, it would be beef oil. - [Hiroshi] It is beef oil. - [Will] You'll notice
that he actually puts the same soup in all of them, but it's the sauces,
that's what's different. Is there a Japanese name for that? - [Hiroshi] Gyusuji. Suji is here. - [Will] Oh ankle? - [Hiroshi] They use gyusuji for shoyu - [Will] But shio? - [Hiroshi] Yeah, shio is
beef belly not pork belly. That's onion. - [Will] Oh that's onion, you're right. Totally different flavor,
kind of complex here. Let's try the soup. It's way sweeter than chicken-based shoyu. The noodles, perfectly
laid out back there. It's nice and oily, you got
all the ingredients on top. Look at that beef, the roast beef. Three perfect slices, laid out. You have the egg there, which we're gonna find out in a moment about. Really good, straight ramen
noodles, nice and thin. The beef is a little bit chewy but a nice cut of roast beef. These are like thinner
cuts of bamboo shoots. A nice balance to the chewier roast beef. And then on top, let me show you this. Look at that, like really sweet,
a totally different sauce. It's kind of like a brisket. Firm on the outside, runny on the inside. A nice orange yolk
inside, just perfection. Such a beautiful balance of
the beef and the brisket here. Insane amount of sweetness,
but it just works really well. And like Hiroshi said, it's
so hard to get this right but Matador's got this all
figured out, that's for sure. So in the famous Ginza,
along an unassuming alleyway is our next ramen spot,
it's called Kagari. They opened in 2013 and
they've quickly risen to be one of the top
ramen spots in the area. So I hear this shop is a little
bit different from the rest. How is this one special? - Yeah this shop is famous
for tori-paitan ramen. - [Will] Haven't had that before, right? - [Hiroshi] Yeah, not yet, this
is chicken with cloudy soup. - Okay, and what does it look like? How does it look
different than the others? - You can't see the
bottom, it's really cloudy. Smooth like chicken soup. - And how does this one compare, like, if you look at tori-paitan,
where does this one rank? - That's kind of tough. I think it's really
high-ranked shop for sure. - Okay, so we're gonna be having really good tori-paitan, okay. I'm ready for that, let's go line up. - Yeah, let's do it. - [Will] What's interesting is that their Ginza location
actually shut down for a bit so this is their brand new shop in Ginza. - I feel very grounded,
all the different elements. - [Hiroshi] This is ginger. And this is fried onion. So maybe after you eat
half of the noodles, you can put ginger or you
can put the fried onions. - [Will] Wow, that's a
really strong chicken soup. Super creamy. - [Hiroshi] Yeah, we
call this tori chashu. - Tori chashu.
- Tori chashu. - [Will] Let's try this chicken chashu. It's actually very gentle, it's not over seasoned or marinated at all. I think because you have so
much flavor already in the soup you don't need that much
flavor in the chashu. And then do you mix it in?
- Yeah. - [Will] Ooh, the tori-paitan was so good. It's really so hard to pick which one was the best ramen shop
out of all these five. But what you should do next
is head over to the blog and read the full blog post which has all the
information that you need. So those are some next level
ramen spots that we went to. And hopefully shows you
that a bowl of ramen isn't just a bowl of ramen. Everything that we had from spicy miso, beef broth, tori-paitan, Yokohama style, tsukemen as well, we were
able to do all of these in a couple days in Tokyo. But if you're not able to,
you can always give Hiroshi of Ramen Beast a shout, and he'll give you an amazing ramen tour in Tokyo. Anyways, this is Will, from
Going Awesome Places. That's it from me, from Tokyo. I hope you had a slurping
good time watching. You know what to do. I'll see you guys next time on my channel. Peace! (slow hip hop music beats)
