It’s time for the San Francisco Ramen Wars to continue (sadly, ramen isn’t quite as ubiquitous as burgers, so I don’t get to enjoy it quite as much). This week, I’m trying out the ramen from Ramen City, Hell’s Ramen and Izakaya Sozai to determine if any of them are better than my current favorite: Mensho Tokyo. Read on to see how they fare!
1. Ramen City
I took a small trek up to North Beach to check out Ramen City. A lot of people online were raving about it, so it felt like an ideal place to check out. They have a selection of ramens (chicken, pork, soft shell crab and veggie) as well as a variety of broths so you can customize it as you like. They also have a variety of spice levels for your enjoyment. As tempted as I was by the soft shell crab, I ended up getting the chashu pork with miso broth with medium spiciness. I did enjoy the fact that they had quite a few veggies in the bowl as well as the meat and noodles, but overall, I wasn’t very impressed. The meat could have melted in the mouth more and the broth was lacking a bit compared to other places. I think it definitely was a nice bowl of ramen (and it came in at $13 including egg, so not crazily priced), but not one that blew my mind away at all.
Miso Ramen with Cha Shu Pork
2. Hell’s Ramen
As soon as I heard about the opening of Hell’s Ramen, I knew I was going to have to give it a try. It was started by the same people as Iza Ramen (close to the top of my rankings), but specializing in a bit more heat. And as I love a spicy ramen, I headed over one evening to give it a try. I decided on the Ashura Ramen: Chicken broth with flower pepper and spiced tahini paste, served with sweet & spicy miso ground pork, bbq pork, cilantro and a marinated egg. It was no where near the spiciest on the menu, but I thought for my first outing, I needed to gauge how spicy it was before going all out. The chicken broth was fantastic and the heat was definitely there (but not too overpowering for me). I loved the sweet and spicy pork, as it really added a nice depth of flavor. Of course, the noodles were fantastic as well as the egg. It was a pretty great bowl of ramen that I was happy to devour. And maybe slightly more enjoyable than Iza Ramen as the spice really added something interesting to the bowl.
Ashura Ramen
3. Izakaya Sozai
A lot of people I know talk about Izakaya Sozai as the best ramen in the city, so I knew it was a place I needed to try. I headed in one night and checked out the menu. Now, the entire menu looked fantastic (and I ordered some pickled vegetables to start which were incredibly tasty), but I was really here for the ramen, and while it was a tonkotsu broth (my least favorite by far), I was willing to give it a try. I did order some extra pork belly for my ramen (although I thought I ordered the fried pork belly) because it looked fantastic when I saw it being brought to another table. I dug in right when it arrived, and it was actually one of the better tonkotsu broths that I’ve eaten. It wasn’t quite as heavy and fatty as some of the others, and there was a bit of a smoky flavor, like they used a bit of bacon or something. However, it turns out that was coming from the pork belly I ordered, and it wasn’t permeating through the broth. The noodles were firm, yet not undercooked, and they also had great flavor. They also made a fantastic marinated egg. The chashu was a bit underwhelming compared to the pork belly though, and honestly, I think they should just switch to pork belly in the ramen as it was definitely the highlight of the bowl.
Tonkotsu Ramen with pork belly
Winner: Mensho Tokyo
While I had some fantastic ramen this week from Hell’s Ramen and Izakaya Sozai, they were not quite up to par to some of the other places I’ve been recently. And no where close to the thick, delicious broth from Mensho Tokyo. However, both Hell’s Ramen and Izakaya Sozai had fantastic bowls, and I would definitely go back to either place if someone wanted me to join them! (And I’d probably go back to Hell’s Ramen on my own even if they didn’t.)
Ranking:
1. Mensho Tokyo
2.
3. Nojo Ramen Tavern
4. Hell’s Ramen
5. Iza Ramen
6. Kan Ramen
7. Izakaya Sozai
8. Slurp Ramen
9. Ippudo
10. Slurp Noodle Bar
11. Hinodeya Ramen Bar
12. The Ramen Bar
13. Ajisen Ramen
14. Marufuku
15. Ushio Ramen
16. Coco’s Ramen
17. Ramen City
18. Katana-Ya Ramen
19. R&B Cafe
20. Yo-Kai Express
21. Ramen Underground
22. Kiramachi Ramen
23. Orenchi Beyond
