Ichiran Honsha Sohonten

As of February 2024, Ichiran is a major chain of tonkotsu ramen restaurants with a total of 86 stores nationwide and overseas. The first Ichiran restaurant was located in Nanokawa, a little south of Hakata, but when the 12-story headquarters building was completed in Nakasu Kawabata, the main restaurant moved to this location in October 1999.

Since then, the Ichiran Honsha Sohonten has continued to operate in the central role of uniting Ichiran restaurants around the world. In fact, this restaurant is open 24 hours a day, which is a huge blessing, especially for travelers who wish to eat tonkotsu ramen in Hakata at any cost. Wouldn’t it be great to start your day with a morning ramen at this sacred place for Hakata tonkotsu ramen fans? With this in mind, I woke up very early one day during my stay in Hakata and headed to Ichiran Honsha Sohonten at a little past 5:00 a.m….

A 12-story building with a huge impact, but only the first and second floors are used as stores… Ichiran Honsha Sohonten is a restaurant like this.

Walking along Meiji-dori Avenue from Tenjin toward Gofukumachi, you will see a red building on the left side of the street with a sign that says, “We have the deliciousness you want to stick to”. This is the Ichiran Head Office building where the Ichiran Honsha Sohonten is located. I heard that this building used to be a business hotel. It sure looks like that, doesn’t it?

But it is not really true that all these big buildings are stores. It seems that only the first and second floors of this building are used as stores, and the rest is used as a company. The seating capacity is 40 seats on the first and second floors combined. There are no tables or private rooms for groups.

Well, if you think of it as a normal ramen shop, that’s about it. If this whole building were a store, it would be a dream come true for the ramen industry…

I had the Natural Tonkotsu Ramen as my morning ramen at Ichiran Honsha Sohonten, the center of all Ichiran restaurants in Japan.

Let me introduce the Natural Tonkotsu Ramen I ordered at Ichiran Honsha Sohonten. I mean, this is the only ramen on the menu. I was really hoping that there would be a special menu only available at Ichiran’s head office, but… well, I guess that’s just the way it is. By the way, the customization this time looks like this…

I added a little more oil and a clove of garlic. After submitting the order form, I regretted a little bit that I had ordered it with “increased amount of oil,” but I’d had “betanama” early in the morning at the Ganso Nagahamaya, so I guess I can make do…

After about 5 minutes of waiting, a bowl of natural tonkotsu ramen arrived in front of me. I regretted a bit about the “oily richness” of the ramen, but it looked not so different from the normal ramen I ordered at Ichiran Nanokawa Branch… Oh yes, I also ordered “Oskaran sourness” to add a little more flavor, but I will introduce that later.

I think there are two types of people when you drink oily soup in the morning: those who feel it is very strong and those who feel it is not so strong because their tongues are sleepy. I seem to be the latter. It has a mild mouthfeel and the pork flavor is very good, but I don’t mind the oil at all. I was also a bit sleepy, so there was none of the pork bone smell that I had detected before, but instead a slight scent of garlic wafted through the air. If I ate it during the day when I woke up from sleep, my impression might be different, but this time the soup seemed to be perfect for me personally.

I asked for the noodles to be hard boiled this time. When I took a bite, I found that the texture was closer to “raw” than “hard”. It is a matter of taste, but I don’t think this degree of boiling is suitable for me… However, since the noodles are very thin, they will absorb the soup and become soft soon if they are left for a while.

Now, to add an arrangement to the ramen, I added this time “Oskaran sourness”. It seems to be Ichiran’s original vinegar based on black vinegar, but since I had a sleepy tongue first thing in the morning, I could not tell the fine difference in taste from black vinegar.  A little bit of vinegar certainly mellows the taste of the soup and changes the impression of the flavor. If too much is added, the sourness will become too strong, so it is better to add a small amount while checking the taste.

If I had to describe Ichiran Honsha Sohonten’s natural tonkotsu ramen in one word, it would be “stable taste”. You can be assured of the same quality of ramen no matter where you go in Japan, and in that sense, I have reconfirmed that Ichiran is a very useful place to eat. However, it is also true that sometimes I would like to eat ramen with a slightly different flavor. I am well aware that this is an extravagant request, but I would be happy if there was something unique to the main branch. Incidentally, some of the branches seem to offer original ramen such as “Kamadare Tonkotsu”. And in Namba, Osaka, there is a restaurant that offers “100% tonkotsu-free ramen,” a menu item that does not seem to be a pork bone ramen specialty restaurant… Maybe I should visit such branches in the future and try another Ichiran flavor…

Souvenir ramen can be ordered by mail order or tax payment…Ichiran Honsha Sohonten is a one-minute walk from Nakasu Kawabata Station on the Fukuoka City Subway Airport Line, the closest station to the restaurant.

Ichiran also develops a variety of products such as cup noodles and yaki-ramen, and you can order a 5-serving pack of dried straight noodles through mail order or tax payment. The price is reasonable at about 2,500 yen per box, and you can get Ichiran’s ramen for free (if the conditions are met) by using Furusato tax payment. Why not buy it as a preserved food for when you feel like eating ramen at home? I’ll put the link for mail order and Furusato tax payment below, if you want to use it.

一蘭 ラーメン 博多細麺（ストレート） 秘伝の粉付 5食入

Amazon参考価格：2599円、楽天参考価格：2680円

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Now, here are the details of the restaurant…