The next bowl
is out there.

A long-running Asahikawa shoyu house known for its scorched lard: fat cooked until dark and bittersweet, floating on a soy broth with a smoky edge that milder bowls don't have.

Serving Hakodate shio ramen since 1930: a clear broth built on kombu from southern Hokkaido with chicken and pork bones, and straight noodles, near the star-shaped Goryokaku fort.

A Matsudo shop known across Japan for thick, deeply savoury pork-and-seafood tsukemen with chewy house-made noodles, often held up as the model of the modern rich dipping style.

Where iekei began in 1974: rich pork-bone and soy broth with chicken oil, thick noodles, spinach and nori, with firmness, oil and strength chosen to order. Iekei shops across Japan trace their style here.

The shop of the late Minoru Sano, the exacting chef Japanese television called the ramen devil: a clear, carefully sourced shoyu bowl that helped set the standard for Japan's modern craft ramen.

A country udon shop in Ayagawa, south-west of Takamatsu, widely credited with creating kamatama: hot Sanuki noodles tossed with raw egg and a splash of soy, Kagawa's answer to carbonara.

The main shop of a well-known Tokushima ramen house serving the city's brown style: dark pork-bone and soy broth, sweet simmered pork belly instead of chashu, and a raw egg to break into the hot soup.

The Kokura restaurant credited with inventing yaki udon in 1945, when its founder used dried udon in place of scarce yakisoba noodles. It still makes it with dried noodles, sauce and bonito flakes.

A Kurume tonkotsu house that began as a street stall in 1953 and still tops up its broth the old way, adding fresh bones and stock to a long-running pot so the soup deepens over time.

One of Kumamoto ramen's founding shops, open since 1955: a pork-and-chicken broth with black garlic oil, and its signature taro-men, topped with soft braised pork belly.

A long-standing Tenmonkan ramen house, said to date to around 1950, known for a mild pork-bone broth, straight noodles under a heap of shredded cabbage, and chashu from Kagoshima black pork.