Noodle pull at Ramen Nagi in Shinjuku

2 comments

1. Ramen Nagi (ラーメン凪) in Shinjuku’s Golden Gai (新宿ゴールデン街) is one of the most iconic ramen shops, probably in all of Japan.

   Situated between hundreds of small bars, Ramen Nagi is the only spot serving ramen directly in the Golden Gai area, with a second shop nearby.

   Ramen Nagi is famous for serving a gritty bowl of niboshi ramen, that is not for the uninitiated. It is a good way to find out if you’re a niboshi person or not, since this bowl is not holding back on the bitterness and the grittiness of the niboshi. But once you’re past that, you’re looking at a really incredible bowl of ramen.

   The Golden Gai shop of Nagi is in the second most southern street of Golden Gai, in the second floor. Open 24/7, you can get your ramen fix literally at any time of the day, all year round. The shop is the same size as most of the bars in Golden Gai, which means SMALL, but still enough to fit around 8 guests inside and serve ramen.

   The ramen is an incredibly rich niboshi ramen combined with very substantial, thick and curled noodles. The perfect noodles to stand up to this kind of fragrant and aromatic soup. The bowl is topped with a quite sweetly seasoned pork belly cubes and more mildly seasoned lean cut slices. Both work well with the soup. It’s also hard to ignore the absolutely massive sheet of nori, which is a great way to soak up the leftover soup at the end. A personal highlight are the flat noodles that are usually placed on top, I wish I could order a full bowl only with those.

   If you would like to know more about Ramen Nagi and this bowl of ramen, check out this short video: https://youtu.be/oj3Zsmj5lLQ

2. Looks amazing!