7 Memorable Shops in August 2025

September 22, 2025

《Japan Ramen Guide/日本拉面指南》

Menkui Wanderer（麺喰ワンダラー）

column 2025.09
I ate a lot of chilled ramen in August, so there weren’t many memorable hot ramen experiences. I can’t eat chilled ramen anymore, so I’ll leave it here as a hope for next year.

01.”Mugi to Buta Noodles(MugiとButaヌードルス)” (Tachikawa)

Opened June 17, 2025. The owner is a dedicated Japanese chef with a wide range of dining experience. The shop serves homemade noodles in containers. The soup is a pork clear broth based on homemade soy sauce koji malt. The noodles are thin and straight. The chashu pork is excellent, and the onions are nicely cut. A new shop to watch.

“Mugi and Buta Noodles” (MugiとButaヌードルス/Tachikawa City/Tachikawa Sta.)
Official Information:
4-4-14 Ebara, Shinagawa Ward, Tokyo 142-0063

02.”Tsugaru Niboshi Hirakoya” (Tokyo Sta.)

▲Special Koikuchi Thick Taste(1,480 yen)

Opening on August 7, 2025, this popular ramen shop represents Aomori Prefecture. The rich soup is made with a pork bone-based broth and four types of dried sardines (over 50kg), primarily Hirako Niboshi, cooked three times using a “three-stage preparation” method. The noodles are custom-made by Matsumoto Seimen, using a unique blend of domestic and foreign wheat. These medium-thick, slightly curly noodles are available exclusively at Tokyo Station. The noodles are chewy and made with a moderate amount of kansui lye water(though many Aomori noodles are kansui-free). The chashu is made with domestic pork thighs, and different cooking methods are used for each cut—inner thigh, rump, and middle thigh—to bring out the distinct flavors.

“Tsugaru Niboshi Hirakoya” (津軽煮干ひらこ屋/Chiyoda Ward/Tokyo Sta.)
Official Information:
1-9-1 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-0005, Tokyo Station Ichibangai B1F

03.”Tonkotsu Ramen Sora no Iro Kojimachi Honpo” (Kojimachi/Hanzomon)

▲Tonkotsu Ramen (900 yen) + Boiled Gyoza Dumplings (220 yen)

Opening August 21, 2025. Soranoiro ARTISAN NOODLES is closing due to plans to relocate to east Ginza. It reopened on the site of its former flagship shop, a long time ago. The soup is cloudy white tonkotsu. While “Kusauma(odorous but tasty)” tonkotsu ramen has recently become popular among tonkotsu ramen shops in Tokyo, this one is different, and it’s also different from “Hakata Ippudo,” the shop where the owner previously worked. It’s also different from its sister shop in Oji, and its lack of similarity is a plus.

Just as there are many different tonkotsu ramen options in Hakata, I’d like to see a variety of tonkotsu ramen in Tokyo, so in that sense, this is a nostalgic yet new type of tonkotsu ramen. As the poster says, “One sip and you’ll see the smiles of that day transcend time. A bowl of nostalgic ramen that will stay in your memory.” This tonkotsu ramen is just as delicious. The noodles I ordered with regular firmness were just the right firmness and were delicious.

“Tonkotsu Ramen Sora no Iro Kojimachi Honpo” (豚骨ラーメンそらのいろ麹町本舗/Chiyoda Ward/Kojimachi Sta.)
Official Information:
1-3-10 Hirakawacho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 102-0093, Blue Building Main Building 1B

[Four Chilled Ramen Selections]

(Product Names and Photos Only)

Autor of this article

■Hiroshi Osaki (大崎裕史); Chairman of the Board of Directors of Ramen Databank Co., Ltd. One of the founders of the Japan Ramen Association. Executive Committee Chairman of the Tokyo Ramen Festa. Born in 1959 in Aizu, the land of ramen. While working at an advertising agency, he launched the ramen information site “Tokyo Ramen Shops” in 1995. Founded Ramen Databank Co., Ltd. in 2005. Became chairman of the board of directors in 2011. He has appeared in many magazines and on television as “the man who calls himself the man who has eaten the most ramen in Japan” (as of the end of June 2024, he has eaten about 14,000 ramen shops and about 29,000 bowls). His books include “Muteki no Ramenron” (The Invincible Ramen Theory) (Kodansha Shinsho) and “Nihon Ramen Hishi(Japan Ramen Hidden Story)” (Nihon Keizai Shimbun Publishing).