Noodles ── Ramen
Shimodate Ramen
soy ramen topped with simmered chicken
Chicken-bone soy broth finished with chicken chashu instead of pork.
- Origin: Ibaraki Chikusei
- Shoyu — soy sauce
- About 70 km north of Tokyo
What it's made of
What rises first from the clear soy broth is the smell of chicken bone. Look for the pork char siu you'd expect, and instead you'll find amber, sweet-savory simmered chicken sitting on top — leaner, so it never blurs the broth's clean edge and the bowl drinks clear to the last sip. The noodles are thin, wavy, and made with less water than usual, giving them a firm, springy bite that holds up in the hot broth all the way to the last mouthful.
How it's made
The stock is drawn slowly from chicken bones and local vegetables, then finished with a dark soy sauce. The chicken topping — often thigh meat — is simmered in a sweet-savory sauce and sliced thin. The noodles use less water than most, so they resist going soft even after time passes, staying firm instead of soaking up the broth. Shops still build the bowl with the gap between kitchen and delivery counter in mind.
Why it took this shape
Pork was an expensive, hard-to-reach cut in the lean years right after the war, and chicken stood in as the affordable substitute for char siu — that's the story passed down here. This town was once dense enough with shops and offices to be called a "trading hub," and delivery to those busy storefronts was routine. Noodles that went soft and soggy on the way over were no good, so a low-hydration, wavy noodle built to withstand time became the answer.
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
- Aizu RamenFlat, thick hand-made noodles in a clear soy broth. Said to trace back to a Aizuwakamatsu diner owner bringing home a taste learned in Yokohama — a second soy ramen lineage that grew up apart from Kitakata's, in the same Aizu region.
- Edokei RamenA soy ramen topped with a knob of bright red chili miso built on garlic and garlic chives. Stirred in gradually as you eat, it turns a mild bowl steadily richer and spicier — a specialty of Akita City.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Ibaraki
- Aka MochiReddish sorghum flour is kneaded with hot water, boiled into dumplings, and coated with sweet bean paste or soybean flour. In flood-prone areas where rice and wheat often failed, sorghum alone survived, making this a stand-in staple.
- Ankou-nabeMonkfish meat, skin, liver, and stomach simmered with vegetables, a winter pot of northern Ibaraki. It is described as a more approachable version of dobujiru, which fishermen ate aboard their boats, and comes in miso and soy-sauce versions.
- Ankou no TomozuBoiled monkfish — flesh, fin, liver, and more — is dipped in a vinegared miso worked through with its own liver, a winter dish from the north coast often paired with fugu as one of Japan's twin winter delicacies.
- Garigari NamasuDaikon is coarsely grated with a bamboo oni-oroshi grater — hence the crunchy 'gari-gari' name — then tossed with vinegared fish. The rough texture is the point, and the dish turns up at New Year's and other gatherings.
- Gomoku InarizushiFried tofu pockets are stuffed with vinegared rice mixed with carrot, burdock, and shiitake. In Kasama, home to Kasama Inari Shrine, the mix grows even more colorful with local soba and walnuts, served to shrine visitors.
- Gosai-zukeSalted, fermented sardines are layered with daikon, yuzu, and chili for a winter preserve from the Rokko coast. As sardine catches have thinned, saury increasingly takes their place.