ラーメン海鳴中洲店 (Unari in Hakata, Fukuoka)

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ラーメン海鳴中洲店

Unari in Fukuoka serves, like most ramen shops on Japan’s southern main island, a heavy, late-night tonkotsu ramen. They do something a little different with a splash of gyokai fish flavoring for added umami. Let the Fukuoka ramen hunt begin!

I took a sneaky trip down to Fukuoka for a week at the end of 2020 to hit up a few ramen shops and take advantage of the GOTO Travel campaign in Japan. The government was subsidizing travel for Japan’s residents to the tune of 50%. You’d get an instant 30% off hotel and travel packages and an extra 20% in the form of coupons that you had to use locally. They ended the campaign in 2021, but have plans to bring it back in 2022. Hotel rooms for $20, and when you check in they give you a coupon for $10. It’s a budget traveler’s dream.

Ramen is also any budget traveler’s dream. Kyushu in particular has some of the cheapest ramen in Japan. Many bowls for less than 600 yen. Unari was on the high side at 740 yen. Still less than the 1000 yen average in Tokyo these days.

In Fukuoka, I see so many of these autograph plaques. I guess every shop is famous.

December 12th, 2020 at 21:18 pm. Let’s go!

Gyokai tonkotsu (魚介とんこつ) ramen. They have a straight tonkotsu as well, but if you are ramen hunting in this part of Japan you want as much variety as you can get.

Lots of choices but go with the gyokai.

Solid bowl, you won’t hear any complaints from me. I, like many people at this shop, was eating this bowl as a 2nd dinner. After local beers. And some sake. A ramen nightcap.

They also have a branch at the Fukuoka Airport’s domestic terminal. It’s in a ramen alley with eight other shops, and for my money, it’s the best shop there.

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