Tonkotsu ramen — in which pork bones are boiled down for hours and hours until you wind up with a rich, creamy soup — might be the most famous style of ramen.
Certainly, the ramen boom that’s been happening in big cities around the world over the last few years has been mostly fuelled by tonkotsu. It’s beloved. And obviously, I’m a fan.
Well, tonkotsu was actually invented in Fukuoka, and Hakata Issou might just be the most popular ramen joint in the city. So suffice it to say, I was excited to check it out.
And so were a lot of people, apparently. I showed up at around 10:45 — fifteen minutes before they opened, and the line was already quite impressive.
By the time I left, it was even longer (about double if not triple the length).
Yes, the place is very, very popular.
I will say I had a bit of an ordering mishap (and considering the use of vending machines with zero English to order at ramen shops in Japan, I’m surprised this is the first time that’s happened).
Thankfully, I wound up with the ramen I wanted, but I also somehow ordered a bowl of rice with chashu, ground pork, and an egg. The rice bowl was actually pretty tasty (and not a bad deal for 900 yen with the ramen), but probably more food than I needed at lunch.
As for the ramen? I’m not gonna lie: I wasn’t crazy about it.
It was insane. It was like they took the flavour of pure, unadulterated fatty pork and then distilled it down until it was amplified by about a million.
It was like trying to drink one of those frozen cans of orange juice concentrate straight up. It’s too much.
It was pork pork pork pork pork pork, and then, hey, do you think this soup needs more flavour? Uh, maybe. Okay, here’s some more pork!!
It had a nice creamy texture that wasn’t too thick, not to mention an impressive lack of greasiness, but the one-note flavour was an endurance test. There wasn’t anything else there.
I pretty much never bother with the condiments at a ramen joint, because I feel like a great bowl of ramen is perfectly magical on its own. No condiments required.
This, however, needed condiments. Badly.
First I added some pickled ginger, which helped, but couldn’t quite stem the tide of the porky assault.
So then I added some of the spicy pickled mustard greens; that basically did it. This infused the broth with a decent amount of spice and acidity, and helped to cut the absurd richness of the soup.
At this point it became a noticeably darker colour, and there were some other flavours beyond just the porkiest pork in the history of pork. It still wasn’t a great bowl of ramen, but at least I was able to enjoy it.
And don’t get me wrong, I love fatty pork! It’s probably one of my favourite things in the world. So if I say something tasted too porky, trust me: it was too damn porky.
The noodles were great, though. They were super thin, but still managed to retain a very satisfying bite. They matched the rich soup perfectly.
The chashu, on the other hand, wasn’t the best, with a noticeably gamy, leftovery flavour.
Location: 3-chōme-1-６ Hakataekihigashi, Hakata-ku, Fukuoka, 812-0013
How to find it: Look for the wooden sign with black text (and the line, of course)