It’s an obvious thing to say but bears repeating anyway: there is excellent food to be found all over Tokyo. Why does it bear repeating if it’s an obvious thing to say? Well, there’s a foodie tendency to go far out of one’s way to eat at the purported “best” of some kind of food. In a city like Tokyo—or Hong Kong—I would suggest that there’s no reason to do this. For one thing, there’s no singular “best” anything. In Tokyo the baseline for everything is very high, and while you’re not guaranteed a transcendent meal at a random place you might walk into off the street, the chances of having a bad meal are pretty low. And excellent iterations of pretty much every kind of food can be found pretty close to wherever you are staying in the city. We were—as I’ve mentioned before—within 20 minutes walk of Monzen Nakacho/Mon Naka. We had excellent yakitori there at Hinai Stand; and we also had what was my favourite ramen outing of the trip at Koukaibou.

Now, I don’t mean to say that Koukaibou is just a random ramen place we walked into off the street. It is, in fact, a very highly regarded ramen restaurant; like Ramenya Toy Box it is on the Tabelog 100 for ramen restaurants and so forth. My point is only that you can find places like Koukaibou without going too far from any part of Tokyo and so, unless you are someone who likes to check things off on “Top 10/50/100” lists, there’s really no reason to travel an hour to eat at some place that has been anointed over all others by some bunch of randos who make lists. All we wanted was to eat good instances of different types of ramen. At Ginza Kagari, you will recall, we had tried tori paitan and niboshi ramen, and at Toy Box, shoyu, miso and shio ramen. In the case of Koukaibou, the style of ramen that they are known for features a mix of pork bone and seafood broth (tonkotsu gyokai). This is the only style of ramen they offer and it’s available in regular and more concentrated tsukemen dipping broth versions. You can individualize your order by choosing different combinations of extra toppings; and you can also get a ramen and pork rice combo.

They are also known for being a friendly/welcoming restaurant and being an easy place for non-Japanese speakers to navigate. Unlike at Toy Box, there is no ticket machine to negotiate, for example. The place is run by an older couple—he handles the cooking, she handles everything else. When you get towards the front of the line, she will come out and hand you a bilingual (Japanese/English) menu and take your order before you enter. You pay as you leave at the end of the meal (they are also a cash-only outfit). They can seat almost twice as many people as Toy Box and have two four-top tables in addition to the usual counter seating. Once the place is open, the first few people in line get to wait inside, which is a boon in the summer heat.

We, however, did not have to wait past opening time. We had spent the morning at the nearby Kiyosumi Gardens and arrived about 20 minutes before they opened at 11. We found one couple already waiting under the awning and joined them there. Within minutes more people had showed up—those unfortunates had to all line up in the sun on the street. Having got our order in before 11 am, we were seated shortly thereafter and ready to get stuck in.

What did we get? The younger boy and I both got the chashao ramen; he got his with extra nori and I got mine with extra menma (seasoned bamboo shoots) and a seasoned soft-boiled egg. The missus and the the older boy both got their the tsukemen; she with a soft-boiled egg and he as a pork rice combo with no further toppings. We also got an order of their gyoza to share. How was it all? Outstanding. The broth had wonderful balance of flavour and texture—neither as porky or as cloyingly rich as regular tonkostu broth can get. The menma/bamboo shoots were thickly cut and were excellent as well. My only quibble was that the egg yolk was not as jammy as I prefer. Egg yolk notwithstanding, as I noted above, this was my favourite ramen eaten on this trip, narrowly edging out the shoyu ramen at Toy Box. The gyoza was excellent too. And we found the restaurant to be as welcoming as advertised.

For a look at the restaurant, the menu and everything we ate and drank, launch the slideshow below. Scroll down to see how much it all cost and to see what’s coming next from Tokyo.

The restaurant being cash only, I cannot consult my credit card statement to see what the total was but you can work it out from the menu. Despite the quality, prices are notably low here. The basic ramen bowl starts at only 850 yen (which is less than $6). I would recommend them highly to anyone in the neighbourhood. And there are many reasons to be within range of Koukaibou on a trip to Tokyo. In addition to the beautiful Kiyosumi Gardens, the Museum of Contemporary Art is within walking distance and the Sumida Hokusai museum is not too far away either. If we stay near Mon Naka again whenever it is we make it to Tokyo again, we’ll be back for sure. If not, I’m sure we’ll easily find excellent ramen wherever else we might be.

Okay, coming up next from Tokyo: yakiniku, ramen and sushi. Even though we’re now back in southern Minnesota, Twin Cities restaurant reports probably won’t start up till the middle of August.