Two new noodlemeisters have landed: one a punctilious, Japanese-run outfit, the other a rock'n'roll grungerie
Ramen fill Japan's otaku (super-nerds) with the kind of fervour usually reserved for tracking down vending machines selling schoolgirls' knickers. New York, too, has the bug for this Chinese interloper (the name comes from lamian, Chinese wheat "pulled" noodles), and now it's our turn. Of the many iterations of ramen – salt-based, soy-based, laced with miso or, er, buttered corn – the one currently overexciting novelty-seekers is tonkotsu, hailing from the street stalls of Hakata, a broth of pork bones boiled until every scrap of fat and marrow has melted into an alchemical, milky-hued brew, dense with flavour and thick with umami.
Two new noodlemeisters have just landed, one a punctilious, Japanese-run outfit, the other a rock'n'roll grungerie. Shoryu is unmistakably the real deal: the chef's from Hakata. Brave the queue, part the noren curtains and staff bellow "Irasshaimase!" at you while banging a drum, causing the lone Christmas wreath regularly to fall to the floor. The menu is short: six varieties of tonkotsu plus a few soy- and miso-based options. They use Hakata-style hosamen noodles: thin, pale and straight, with nice springiness and bite. But the chashu pork in the tonkotsu has a greyish, cheap roast dinner quality, and the soup lacks body, its glutinous pigginess leavened with chicken stock. There's a forest of beansprouts to negotiate before you get to the good stuff: papery nori that faints into the broth; wood ear mushrooms; strips of red ginger. The piri piri version has a cough-making belt of chilli.
Gyoza, the trad accompaniment, are good: thin skin, juicy, porky filling. There's trembly fresh tofu with fiery kimchi. And takoyaki – thickly battered octopus balls, a Japanese guilty pleasure. But that's offset by plum wine laced with extra collagen, in line with the Japanese fad for "eating yourself beautiful".
The best tonkotsu has cleanliness despite its fatty content – more soul food than junk food. At Bone Daddies, from Ross Shonhan (ex-Zuma and Nobu), it gets down and dirty. Imagine liquidising a roast pig and straining it into a bowl, and you'll get an idea of his kotteri-style broth. Textured like gravy, glossy with fat, gummy with collagen, it defeats me. OK, so we have fried chicken to start, and serviceable sashimi, and sharp pickles for, um, healthiness. And there's an extra pipette of fat for injection into the bowl, in case the whole wrung-out pig isn't enough. The noodles go floppy as they suck up the soup, but the chashu offers the melting fat and tender flesh of excellent pork.
Chicken stock-based tantanmen are more accessible, despite their sesame overdose and blast of chilli heat. I love the extras: ni-tamago (egg marinated and semi-boiled); chilli oil; garlic cloves and crusher at each table. Bone Daddies isn't subtle, and testosterone is ratcheted up with a soundtrack of what can only be described as raawwk.
There's no definitive blueprint for ramen: Shoryu is rammed with Japanese diners, slurping away without conversation; Bone Daddies is wall-to-wall hip young gunslingers yelling at each other as they neck cocktails and Asahi Super Creamy Head. But ramen are here to stay: fast, filling and relatively cheap. And, Berocca martini aside, there's no hangover cure on Earth to beat 'em.
• Shoryu Ramen, 9 Regent Street, London SW1, 020-3620 1845. Open all week, lunch Mon-Fri 11am-3.30pm, dinner 5-11pm; Sat 11am-11pm, Sun 11am-10pm. Meal with drinks and service, about £20 a head.
Food 6/10
Atmosphere 6/10
Value for money 7/10
• Bone Daddies, 30-31 Peter Street, London W1, 020-7287 8581. Open Mon-Sat, lunch noon-3pm, dinner 5.30pm-midnight. Meal with drinks and service, about £30 a head.
Food 6/10
Atmosphere 7/10
Value for money 7/10
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