Nakiryu

Order the tantanmen. It is the reason the shop is known and the reason it was recognised. Tantanmen is the Japanese descendant of Sichuan dan dan noodles, and the Japanese version is soupier, richer and built on sesame; Nakiryu’s is unusually deep, with a properly emulsified sesame base, minced pork, and enough Sichuan pepper to produce the numbing tingle rather than simple heat.

The balance is the thing. A lot of tantanmen is either bland sesame paste or an assault. This one is neither: the chilli is present and the pepper is distinct from it, and you can still taste the stock underneath both. Ask for it without the chilli oil if you are heat-averse and it is still an excellent bowl.

The shoyu ramen is the other thing to know about. It is a clear, restrained soy-based bowl and it is the one to order if you want to understand why the kitchen is taken seriously – the technique is more exposed with nothing to hide behind. Regulars often order one of each between two people.

Add the ajitama, the marinated soft-yolk egg. Add wontons if they are on the machine. Skip the rice.

Expect to queue. The counter seats roughly ten and turnover is fast, but the line commonly forms before opening and can run an hour at peak. A queue here is normal and orderly: you join the end, you do not leave a bag to hold your place, and when you reach the door you buy your ticket from the machine and wait to be seated.

The way to shorten it is to go at an unfashionable time. The end of a lunch service, or the first half hour of an evening one on a weekday, are meaningfully quieter than 12:30 on a Saturday. Because we cannot responsibly print the service times, the practical instruction is to check on the day and then aim for the edges of whatever they are.

The ticket machine. Insert cash, press the button for your bowl and any extras, take the tickets and your change, and hand the tickets over at the counter. Buttons are Japanese with some English; the top-left button is conventionally the shop’s signature bowl, which here is what you want. Bring notes and coins – assuming a card will be accepted at a counter of this kind is how people end up apologising in a queue.

Eat and go. There is no lingering culture at a ramen counter with ten seats and forty people outside, and finishing in fifteen minutes is the polite norm rather than a rush.

Tokyo has a genuine claim to be the ramen capital of the world, and the Michelin Bib Gourmand list here is unusually long for a category of food that costs under a thousand yen a bowl. Nakiryu sits alongside a small number of shops recognised on that list, and no ramen shop currently holds a Michelin star.

If you are building a ramen itinerary rather than a single meal, the useful contrast is with tsukemen, the dipping style that was invented in this city, and with the fuller account of it on the Rokurinsha page. Otsuka itself is an unremarkable Yamanote Line stop that happens to have this in it, so plan the trip around the meal rather than the other way round.

For the other two Bib Gourmand counters on this site, see Tamawarai for soba and Tonkatsu Hinata for pork cutlet.