Ramen Yoshi
Here’s a shop I visited over a month ago now. I think I should get it out of the way while I am in a ramen kind of mood.
Of course, “get it out of the way” doesn’t mean that this was an unnoteworthy bowl. If anything, it the exact opposite: this, without a doubt, was one of the best bowls of ramen I’ve ever laid a pair of chopsticks onto. Here’s the chat:
I wasn’t expecting too much from this place at first. It’s one of the highest rated shops in Sapporo, and it does only one kind of ramen, a gyokai tonkotsu shoyu, which is more of a Tokyo bowl than a Sapporo one. The shop is located in Tsukisamu, a neighbourhood in the southern suburbs of Sapporo. I went to this shop for lunch during a conference for work that took place near Nakajima Park. That means a 20 minute subway ride each way, so it didn’t leave me a whole lot of time to find the shop and eat the ramen.
The crappy thing about subway stations is that they don’t actually have buildings, but rather just random exits that come out onto the street or out of other buildings in the area. So it took me about 10 minutes to find the shop which was supposed to be about a minute or two away from the station. Eventually, I did find it. 
It looks just like any other house in Hokkaido (rectangular and surrounded by snow) but I’ve gotten pretty decent at spotting out ramen shops now so I managed to identify it from across the street.
As you can probably tell from the outside, the shop is quite small, seating only seven people. An older lady takes the order and takes your money while a younger man makes the ramen. 
They only make one kind of ramen, as any decent ramen shop should. The menu, from right to left, reads: “Ramen,” “Ramen with egg,” “Rice.” 
And here’s the bowl: 
The picture doesn’t really do it justice, it really was beautiful. The taste? Well the shop itself describes the soup as having a strong dashi flavour, but it’s actually quite subtle and mellow. I am not a big fan of seafoody ramen, but this just the right amount of seafoodiness to add a extra dimension to the soup. The noodles were straight, slightly thick and chewy, pretty common for a soup like this. I have a feeling that if this shop was in Tokyo, it would be garnering much attention (and a big line up.)
Its only flaw, alas, is that it’s in a neighbourhood that has almost nothing to offer (there is a used guitar shop in the area though that I’ve been wanting to check out, so there’s another excuse to get out there.) Nevertheless, one of my favourite things about eating ramen is that it takes me places that I would otherwise never go to, so its remote location might actually be another appeal of Ramen Yoshi, rather than a flaw.
