Strike Ken

In the Tenjinbashisuji Rokuchome area, one of Osaka’s most competitive ramen districts, there is a ramen restaurant named Strike Ken. It was established in 2013, and this year marks its 13th year in business, so it does not have a very long history, but it has achieved an extraordinary achievement, having been awarded the Ramen WEST 100 Best Ramen Restaurant in the “Tabelog” seven times to date. It may be said that this restaurant is now one of the legends in the Osaka ramen industry.

I wanted to try the ramen of such a representative Osaka ramen shop, so I visited the store in Tenroku during lunch time on a weekday. In fact, this restaurant is quite unique…

Everything, starting from its name, is related to baseball… Strike Ken is a restaurant like this…

 I arrived at Strike Ken around 11:30 a.m., 30 minutes after the opening time. At this time, there was no line at the store, and when I went straight into the store, there were zero customers. I was very surprised, even though the restaurant is quite famous. Well, on that day, customers followed me one after another, and the restaurant’s 10 seats were soon filled to capacity, so I don’t think that the popularity of the restaurant is fading… However, looking at the restaurant, it seemed that the customers at that time were not businessmen or young people, but mainly families and locals. So, it may be that the target customers are different from those of Sodaisho, a restaurant with a long line of customers in the immediate vicinity.

The owner of Strike Ken is a baseball fan and has strong feelings for Koshien, and everything in the restaurant is related to baseball. The name of the restaurant, Strike Ken, and the names of the menu items are straight up sinkers…I like this kind of restaurant. But I wish they would have given the third menu item “Tsuke-soba” some kind of changeable name anyway..

Aiming for the straight from the heart? What was it like to try Strike Ken’s signature dish, Straight?

Let me introduce you to the signature dish I ordered at Strike Ken that day, Straight Ramen (price: 950 yen including tax). After about 5 minutes of waiting, the ramen arrived in front of me…

The name of the menu is “Straight,” so the ramen is straight to the point! The image below shows the soup.

First, a sip of the soup… The soup has a very good flavor of niboshi (dried sardines). On the other hand, the soy sauce flavor is not so strong, so the impact of the niboshi broth is stronger. However, it is by no means light in flavor. The soup has a strong broth, so you do not feel that the soup is lacking in terms of Chinese noodle soup. Chinese noodle made with this kind of dashi broth seems to be very common, but it’s not so easy to find…

The noodles are medium-thin straight noodles made by Mikawaya in Tokyo. The surface of the noodle is smooth, and when biting into the slightly hard-cooked noodle, it feels moderately resilient. In fact, it is said that Strike Ken uses different noodles at different noodle mills, such as Mikawaya’s noodles for straight ramen and Menya Teigaku’s noodles for sinker ramen. With such trivia knowledge, it would be interesting to compare the two ramen.

The main topping of Chinese noodles, chashu pork, was included in two pieces by default. It is a very orthodox loin pork chashu pork, but since the ramen itself is an orthodox chuka-soba, this is definitely better suited to it than the more elaborate chashu pork that is being used these days.

Strike Ken‘s signature menu item, Straight, can be summed up in one word: “Chinese noodle that makes you eat well with the taste of the broth. I would have liked a little more volume… but even with that, I think it is a filling dish that will leave you feeling satisfied. The latest ramen trends are great, but you need to keep this kind of orthodox Chinese noodle as an option. In that sense, I think it is a very strong candidate when you want to eat Chinese noodles in Tenroku area.

There is also an izakaya nearby where you can enjoy the owner’s creative cuisine …Strike Ken is a 1-minute walk from Tenjinbashisuji Rokuchome Station on the Osaka Metro Sakaisuji Line, the closest station. 

Strike Ken, a popular ramen restaurant in Tenroku, has an affiliate restaurant called Mash Up, where you can enjoy the owner’s creative cuisine. This is also a popular restaurant where reservations are required and celebrities often visit. It is open from 3:00 in the afternoon, so lunchtime drinking is also possible. It would be interesting to have ramen at Strike Ken after drinking here.

Here are the details of the restaurant…

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