Good ole' Tokyo ramen is the most well-known and widespread style of ramen found in Japan and quite possibly the rest of the world. With a soup made from pork bones and chicken stock, Japanese dashi, shoyu tare, and curly yellow egg noodles, Tokyo ramen is, on so many levels the most "average" of ramen styles - from the amount of water used in cooking the noodles to their shape, their curl-to-length ratio, and the ingredients found in the soup.
This traditional Tokyo style (shoyu soup, curly egg noodles, and a dashi of bonito or kombu) arrived from across the bay in Yokohama. It was quickly embraced as more "wafu", or Japanese, style of noodles than the Chinese noodles from which it was originally descended. Many shops in the Tokyo and Saitama area, such as Taishoken Eifuku-cho, have taken this to an extreme, presenting ramen in a heavily dashi-flavored broth that is often strangely reminiscent of hot udon or soba soup.
With the increasing popularity of ramen in Japan and throughout the world, more and more regional specialists and upstart ramen ventures have taken up shop in the largest metropolitan area in Japan. As such, it is becoming increasingly difficult to define "Tokyo ramen" in the purest sense. Innovators at shops such as Taishoken Higashi-Ikebukuro created "morisoba" or dipping noodles, serving ramen noodles on a plate, to be dipped in a heavily shoyu or wafu tasting soup concentrate. With the recent tonkotsu ramen boom, many shops now feature a shoyu-tonkotsu or shoyu-genkotsu hybrid ramen, often to great success.
Occasionally, pedigree chefs such as Yasuji Morizumi, with training in Franco-European cuisine, emerge to create entirely new forms of self-proclaimed "Tokyo" ramen at restaurants like Chabuya and Mist. Shiodome ramen is another such establishment, with a soup flavored heavily by clams.
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