らぁ麺飯田商店湯河原本店

I wish Ramen Adventures could be 100% current with shop information and photos. If only I could somehow revisit all the 2000 shops that I’ve been to every year to see the changes. Heck, I wish I could visit some popular shops for a mere second time, but the hunt for ramen is a never-ending journey.

That said, some shops I return to at least once a year. Iidashoten is one of those. Since I first wrote about this shop, they’ve gone on to become the undisputed top shop in all of Japan. With a 4.1 score on Tabelog, they are lumped into the world of fine dining. They are the only ramen shop to be given a bronze award, making them one of the cheapest gourmet meals in Japan. They are also a serious pain to get to, requiring an online reservation and a few hours of travel from central Tokyo.

It’s all worth it. This is a stellar shop. If you are a foodie who shies away from ramen in favor of only top-level cuisine, you should make the journey to Yugawara. And you should do so regularly to taste the changes.

It is hard to write about Iidashoten or any ramen shop that evolves their recipes for that matter. My first write-up about the shop, the one that I link to whenever writing about Iidashoten, is out of date. Do I go back and re-link everything? Do I contact every English-language news outlet that commissioned me for an article? The answer is an unapologetic “no,” as doing so for this shop would mean I’d have to do it for all other popular shops. In my defense, it looks like this time in late 2021 is pretty close to what they are still serving in late 2023. Yes, I’m two years behind schedule. Better than my 4.5 years behind schedule on YouTube.

Choose from shoyu or shio or tsukemen. The signature is the shoyu, I suppose. It uses a blend of both dark and light soy sauce from Adachi Jozo (足立醸造) in Hyogo Prefecture along with eight others for a unique blend. The broth is made with Sansui Jidori (山水地鶏) chickens. These chickens, a cross between Nagoya Cochin and Satsuma, live at an elevation of 900 meters on the Yubara Plateau (湯原高原) in Okayama away from any kind of industry. Who would go to such lengths for chickens? None other than Minoru Sano, the godfather of modern ramen. Other pedigree birds are used, like Kurosatsuma (Kagoshima), Hinai Jidori (Akita), and Nagoya Cochin.

The pork is Tokyo X, Kirishima Kogen (霧島高原), and Kinkaton (金華豚).

Do you want more kodawari ingredients? Salt from Christmas Island, Kochi, Niigata, Oshima, and Okinawa. Reverse osmosis water. Kansui from Inner Mongolia. Noodles made with a blend of domestic flour (片岡農園ハルユタカ, 春よ恋, さぬきの夢, キタホナミ). These are some nerdy noodles.

The rice topped with freshly shaved bonito and local wasabi is delightful, though you might want to do ramen and tsukemen since you made the effort to come all this way. I have yet to photograph the tsukemen at Iidashoten, but it is quite wonderful. Two kinds of noodles and flavors for days.

The bonito here is from Ibuski in the south of Japan. Line-caught and prepared in the traditional way of smoke-drying, this is possibly the best-in-class shaved bonito in the country. Yugawara is located on the Izu Peninsula, one of only a few areas in Japan with wasabi production. The rice is grown in melt-off from snow in Yamagata.

Reservations can be made on the Omakase reservation site every Tuesday for the following week. This sounds easy, but they sell out instantly. It is very difficult to snag one when they are released, and nearly impossible to get a reservation for the time that you want. This is the nature of the beast. When I first went to Iidashoten years ago I waited in line for three hours. During the New Year’s holiday, people would line up in the freezing cold from 5:00 am to eat. With the new system, the wait is gone, but so is the choice to line up.

The easiest way is to sign up on the Omakase website and set Iidashoten as a “favorite” shop. You’ll be notified of cancellations, which happen all the time. Sometimes three or four times a day. If you happen to be online when you get the email, you have a good chance of getting that seat. I have a few friends, fun-employed foodies with nothing but time who jump on these whenever they can.

Once the reservation is secured, it is an hour and a half drive from Tokyo. Public transportation takes around two hours and costs 3500 yen each way. Nothing is nicer than a trip to some hot springs in Izu, whether that be in Yugawara, Atami, or Atagawa. Stay the night, slurp the ramen, and head home. Or just spend the 7000 yen and five hours for a return trip. Either way, you’re gonna love it.

Official X here.

Official reservation site here.

Ramen Adventures

Ramen Shop Reviews from Japan and Abroad

らぁ麺飯田商店 (Iidashoten in Yugawara, Kangawa)

中華ソバビリケン (Biliken in Asakusa, Tokyo)

つけめん金龍 (Tsukemen Kinryu in Kanda, Tokyo)

南国酒家 (Nangoku Shuka in Yokohama)

らぁ麺 飯田商店 (Iidashoten in Yugawara, Kangawa)

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中華ソバ ビリケン (Biliken in Asakusa, Tokyo)

つけめん金龍 (Tsukemen Kinryu in Kanda, Tokyo)

南国酒家 (Nangoku Shuka in Yokohama)

らぁ麺飯田商店 (Iidashoten in Yugawara, Kangawa)

中華ソバビリケン (Biliken in Asakusa, Tokyo)