AFURI Karakurenai

As of 2024, there are a total of 18 popular AFURI ramen stores in the Tokyo and Kanagawa areas, but only one of them is unique and different from the others. That store is AFURI Karakurenai, located in Shinjuku Subnade. As the name implies, the restaurant’s main dish is a bright red ramen stained with chili peppers, attracting attention not only from ramen lovers but also from fans of the hot and spicy variety. To find out what kind of sharp ramen you can enjoy at AFURI Karakurenai, I headed to Shinjuku Subnade, where the restaurant is located, on a night during my stay in Tokyo to try it out for myself. I walked from the East Exit of JR Shinjuku Station through the underground passage to the store to compare it with the light and elegant Yuzu Shio Ramen I had previously eaten at AFURI Ebisu…

A cashless restaurant, but cash is also accepted…AFURI Karakurenai is a restaurant like this…

AFURI Karakurenai is located at the western end of Shinjuku Subnade, which stretches from east to west, just a short walk from Seibu Shinjuku Station. When I arrived at AFURI Karakurenai at around 7:30 p.m. on that day, there were five customers waiting to enter the restaurant. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but all of them were foreign tourists. I had the impression that there were more foreigners than Japanese customers in the store.

While you are waiting to enter the restaurant, purchase a meal ticket from the ticket vending machine in the front of the restaurant. The latest touch-panel ticket vending machine. It accepts all forms of payment, including credit cards. In addition, there are quite a wide range of options for customizing your ramen, and you can adjust it in various ways to your liking.

First, select one main ramen or tsukemen/wae-soba. This time I ordered the Yuzu Karakurenai Ramen, the restaurant’s signature dish. I will explain how to order using this Karakurenai Ramen as an example.

After ordering the Yuzu Karakurenai Ramen, you will be asked to set the spiciness level. There are a total of nine levels of spiciness options, but in fact, there is also an extremely spicy option called “Spicy 28 Chome,” which is much spicier than this…

After setting the spiciness level, choose the main topping, chashu pork, from either “Purutoro (Pulled and melted)” or “Chicken Chashu”. This time I chose the recommended “Purutoro”, but you could have chosen “both” if you wanted to be extravagant.

The Yuzu Karakurenai Ramen has sansho (Japanese pepper) in the noodles as well. It is not only in the soup, but also in the noodles…it seems to be a simple matter to add the stimulating ingredient. But you can also choose non-stimulating konjac thin noodles, so even if you are not confident about spicy food, it is okay.

Finally, add toppings of your choice and pay the bill…AFURI as a whole has a policy of promoting cashless payment, and some of its branches are completely cashless. However, the ticket machine at this AFURI Karakurenai accepts cash as well, so don’t worry about that…

Yuzu Karakurenai Ramen, the signature dish at AFURI Karakurenai, is not just spicy!

Let me introduce the signature dish, Yuzu Karakurenai Ramen, which I ordered at AFURI Karakurenai. After waiting for more than 10 minutes, the bowl of Yuzu Karakurenai Ramen arrived in front of me…

As expected, the soup is bright red. You can tell from its appearance that the soup has a lot of spiciness in it. Incidentally, this time I ordered it at the “4-chome” level, which is right in the middle of the 9 levels of spiciness. In other words, this ramen is the standard for spiciness in the AFURI spicy red soup…

Let’s start with the reddish soup…it was a bit unexpected. It is indeed spicy, but the sourness is even stronger than that. The soup seems to be filled with freshly squeezed yuzu juice from Kochi Prefecture, so not only the aroma but also the sourness is all over the yuzu. On the other hand, the spiciness of the soup is also quite good, consisting of several kinds of chili powder, spicy hot oil, and special spicy miso, and although it is set at medium spiciness, the spiciness is so stimulating that your forehead will be sweating in no time. The base of this soup seems to be AFURI’s signature chicken soup, but the impact of the sourness and spiciness is so strong that there is no time to savor the flavor of the chicken soup. However, even though the soup is spicy and sour, there is something about it that attracts you and makes you want to take another sip, which is what AFURI’s ramen is all about.

On the other hand, Sansho is also kneaded into the noodles (Sansho thin noodles). Physically, they are straight and thin noodles with a square shape like Japanese buckwheat noodles, but when you put them in your mouth, your tongue tingles… The cool aroma of the sansho is good, but when the stimulation of the sansho is added to the spiciness of the broth, you are already full! I felt like I was full. The restaurant recommends spiciness level 4, but if you are not sure, it is better to start at a lower level.

The chashu pork is an oasis in a ramen dish filled with so many stimulants. Not only is it as tender as its name suggests, but the soy sauce sauce soaks into the inside of the pork, and in a good way, it tastes just as you probably imagined it would. Not only is it a well-made chashu pork, but it also gives a soothing taste to your mouth in a bowl full of stimulation. I’d like to try this chashu in regular ramen if possible…

As you can imagine, the signature dish of AFURI Karakurenai, Yuzu Karakurenai Ramen, was very stimulating, but it was not only spicy and sour, it was also addictive and made you want to eat it again. I am not a spicy person, so I don’t think I will come here often, but I may try it again when I come back to Tokyo. I think it is the perfect ramen for when you want to give your body a little kick. Also, it would be nice to have a bowl of ramen on a cold winter night and go home with a warm body.

Non-spicy ramen is also on the menu… Access to AFURI Karakurenai is a one-minute walk from the nearest station, Seibu Shinjuku Station on the Seibu Shinjuku Line.

AFURI Karakurenai is like this, but they also have non-spicy ramen on the menu. Yuzu Shiro Shoyu Ramen (priced at 1,290 yen including tax) is a chicken soup with the aroma of yuzu (yuzu citrus fruit), without all the spicy elements of Yuzu Karakurenai Ramen. Not only the soup, but also the noodles can be changed to extra-thin noodles with whole wheat flour without sansho (Japanese pepper), so even those who cannot eat spicy food at all can enjoy AFURI’s ramen without worry. Incidentally, this yuzu white soy sauce ramen is not on the menu at other restaurants, including AFURI Ebisu. So, it is totally possible to skip the spicy ramen and go for the ramen that you can only get here….

Now, here are the details of the restaurant…

From the East Exit of JR Shinjuku Station, it takes only 3 minutes on foot.

P.S. If you are looking for delicious ramens in Tokyo, please stop by this article below…