Very friendly couple running the small ramen restaurant. Will try their best to communicate with us (we can’t speak Japanese!) thank you for the very good and hearty meal.

Friendly staff and they usually entertain foreign people Ordered Shio Ramen It ain’t too much salty which is good for me though

Very lovely owners and great ramen!

I visited this shop on the corner of an intersection that I'd been curious about for a while. Its well-worn, characterful appearance raised my hopes for some delicious ramen. At lunchtime on a weekday there was only about 1 other customer, and I sat at the counter. The menu said "shio ramen" was recommended, so I ordered the vegetable shio ramen. It was served very quickly, with a generous helping of vegetables. The chashu was full of flavor and delicious too. The soup was less on the light side and more of a rich, hearty shio flavor, very satisfying. I'm glad I got to go to the shop I'd been curious about.

+2

Kodawari no Shio Ramen Kazuyoshi A ramen shop along National Route 12 heading from Asahikawa to Sapporo, diagonally across from the Fukagawa roadside station "Rice Land Fukagawa". The storefront is quite classic, but it actually uses a space that used to be a convenience store, so it's not the decades-old institution it looks like. This was my 5th visit. The shop's defining trait, as the name says, is its "unusual obsession with shio ramen". If it's your first visit, shio ramen is what you should eat first. This time I ordered shio ramen + small fried rice. As you'd expect these days, prices have gone up from before. The small fried rice going from 150円 to 250円 in particular really shows the times. Well, you could also say it was just too cheap before. And this shop's shio ramen, if I had to describe it in the most fitting way―― "Sapporo Ichiban Shio Ramen-inspired style". Let me be clear, that's a compliment! It's the ultimate ramen on the extension of "Sapporo Ichiban", created from scratch by the owner gathering only carefully selected real ingredients. It's like: take the "strangely addictive flavor" of that bagged instant noodle that's the best-selling in Japan and known to everyone, have the owner seriously pursue it with real ingredients, and this is what you get. It's different from just old-fashioned ramen, and different from fancy, high-minded shio ramen. It brings "the memory of that taste you ate at home" into a ramen shop at a strangely high resolution. Another point is that it's made slightly light so you can enjoy changing the flavor with the condiments on the table. It somehow reminds me of ramen made at home without properly measuring the water. Looking at the slightly cluttered kitchen, you can spot a few seasonings commonly seen in homes, probably used in trial and error to recreate this flavor. The air of "the owner must have researched this a lot..." is another charming point. The noodles are also spot on. Going the complete opposite of the recent "firm is king" trend, they're somewhat soft with no real chewiness. They remind you of that particular feel going down when you've slightly overboiled bagged noodles at home. Normally that'd be a flaw, but strangely it works with this ramen. The chashu is also a must-see. Perhaps to make up for the ramen being light overall, it's seasoned a bit strongly, giving you the illusion of finding an oasis in the desert. And the small fried rice. When I had it before, it was at the level where I suspected "is this frozen fried rice?", but this time it was properly cooked right in front of me. It's the moist type but properly fried rice, and for 250円 it's actually convincing. Honestly, some people will probably go "what is this ramen?". But for those it clicks with, it strangely really clicks. In fact, every time I travel between Sapporo and Asahikawa, I find myself stopping by again—it's that addictive.

+3