★★ 喜楽 (Kirauku) - Tokyo

Kiraku is an old style ramen house in Shibuya, located about 7 minutes walking distance west of the Shibuya train station. The store was filled with older business men, suprising since Shibuya is always filled with young people. I ordered the 中華麺 (chuka-men), or Chinese noodles.

The Soup - is a soy sauce based chicken and pork based clear soup, flavored with fried green onions. Somewhat similar to the soup used in traditional Taiwanese noodles like Dan-zai noodles.

The Noodles - are really good. These thick hand made noodles are springy, chewy and delicious.

The Toppings - are lots of boiled bean sprouts, cha-shu pork and a boiled egg. The cha-shu and hard boiled egg were just average.

Overall - I wasn't that impressed with Kiraku ramen, though their noodles were very good. Kiraku has been around for more than 50 years and has always gotten good reviews from the local ramen fans. This place tasted a lot like the noodles I had in Taiwan, not what I am looking for in ramen in Japan.

http://www.geocities.jp/urach92/kiraku.htm
http://www5a.biglobe.ne.jp/~tacky/rdb/rdb-638-kiraku.htm