Noodles ── Ramen
Hiroshima Ramen
pork broth softened with soy sauce and vegetables
A pork-bone base rounded out with soy sauce and vegetables for a softer finish.
- Origin: Hiroshima City, Hiroshima
- Tonkotsu — pork bone
- About 680 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
A mild, faintly cloudy broth built mainly on pork bone pairs with thin, firmly boiled noodles. Chicken bone and vegetable stock are layered in too, so the bowl drinks far lighter than it looks, with a notably smooth, rounded finish. It sits deliberately between Hakata's heavy emulsification and Onomichi's back-fat richness — a harmonized style rather than either extreme.
How it's made
The broth runs on pork bone but is rounded out with chicken bone and vegetable stock to soften its edges. It borrows the region's cloudy pork-bone style, but rather than simply copying it, is said to have developed its own direction toward a mellower finish. A lineage tracing back to a shop called Shimai forms the core of the style, spreading through the city as branches opened one after another.
Why it took this shape
One story traces it to a postwar yatai stall here that later became a storefront shop, its lineage spreading through repeated branch openings into what is now the core style. Taking a broth shaped by the tight constraints of a street stall and softening it with the sweetness of chicken and vegetables reads as this region's own way of remaking that inherited form — choosing ease of eating over a bolder, more aggressive flavor.
Before you go
- How to read a ticket machineShops that use a ticket machine (shokken-ki) often place their most popular items in a similar spot.
- Cash-only shops are commonEspecially at ramen shops, it's common to find places that only accept cash — often through a ticket machine.
- Foods to look for in summerA guide to foods often seen in Japan around summer — eel on the Day of the Ox, hiyashi chuka, somen, shaved ice, edamame with beer, and hamo — with rough pointers for finding them.
Dishes in the same style
- Hakata RamenA cloudy broth from hard-boiled pork bones with very thin, straight noodles. Diners can order kaedama, an extra portion of noodles alone.
- Iekei RamenPork bone and chicken carcass simmered long and finished with a dark soy tare and chicken fat, paired with thick, short noodles, spinach, and nori — traced to a shop that opened in 1974 in Yokohama's Shinsugita district and is said to have spread among workers in the surrounding industrial zone.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Contrast
- Hakata RamenA cloudy broth from hard-boiled pork bones with very thin, straight noodles. Diners can order kaedama, an extra portion of noodles alone.
- Hakodate RamenA clear salt broth with thin, straight noodles. It grew in a port city exposed early to food culture from abroad.
- Onomichi RamenA soy-sauce broth stocked with small fish from the Seto Inland Sea, dotted with pork back fat. Served with flat, straight noodles.
- Hiroshima TsukemenChilled Chinese noodles dipped into a spicy soy-based sauce — a tsukemen said to have originated in Hiroshima. Boiled vegetables and a boiled egg are served alongside, and one account traces it to a Chinese restaurant in Hachobori, now a fixture of the city's noodle culture.
Also from Hiroshima
- Anago MeshiConger eel, grilled kabayaki-style, is sliced and layered over rice cooked in dashi—a dish from Miyajima. It uses "Seto anago," prized for the fat that fast currents help build into the fish, and is said to have begun in 1901 as a bento sold at Miyajimaguchi station.
- AzumaSardine-like mamakari, cured in vinegar, is pressed onto seasoned okara instead of vinegared rice in this coastal sushi. It is said to have begun as a way to stretch scarce rice by substituting the cheap, plentiful soy pulp, and was served at festivals and New Year's gatherings.
- Bishu NabeChicken, gizzard, and pork are simmered with nothing more than salt, pepper, and sake in this hot pot from Saijo, one of Japan's noted brewing towns. It is said to have begun as a simple meal cooked by sake brewers between batches, seasoned lightly so as not to dull their palate for tasting.
- EbamakiRice is tossed with Hiroshima-na pickle, bonito flakes, and sesame, then rolled in toasted nori—a roll from Hiroshima's Eba district, long known for seaweed cultivation. The ends are sometimes tucked shut so it can be eaten one-handed while rowing, a food born for nori fishermen working on the water.
- Fuchu-yakiA Fuchu, Hiroshima take on okonomiyaki that swaps sliced pork belly for ground beef or pork worked right into the batter, so the meat's flavor is said to come through evenly in every bite.
- GansuFish paste coated in panko and fried, a Kure, Hiroshima specialty. Said to have been devised in the postwar 1940s as a way to use leftover fish paste from kamaboko production, an unusual pairing of fried fish cake and cutlet-style crumb.