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The story of Ivan Ramen is an unlikely one. For a foreigner to open up shop in Tokyo and be lauded for making Japanese food is nearly unheard of due to a competitive Tokyo food scene, and the Japanese idea that foreigners simply can’t master Japanese-ness in all its incarnations.
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Yet Jewish American Ivan Orkin’s take on ramen catapulted his shop into the Tokyo spotlight, allowing him to open a second Ivan Ramen location in Tokyo, and two New York shops.
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We stopped by Ivan Ramen’s original Tokyo location late one afternoon and it’s safe to say that it ruined us for all other ramen consumed during our trip!
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The ticket machine has English, as well as Japanese descriptions on the buttons, so no worries about ease of ordering.
Ivan Ramen is characteristically small; just the L angled counter you see here…about 8 seats.
We opted for the Special Shio, and the Special Spicy Red Chili Ramen. They were both fantastic. I liked my Spicy Ramen better than the boyfriend’s Shio, though he wasted no time laying into it, so I can’t offer you a better photo. Perfectly cooked noodles, sublime soft boiled eggs, and a flavorful but not too heavy broth all distinguish the ramen from other shops we tried. A quote from this Food & Wine piece on Orkin actually lays it out in a way that makes a lot of sense after tasting both the mediocre and the exceptional on the spectrum of ramen:
 Ramen, really, is basically junk food. But I wanted something you could eat every day and not feel sick. And hopefully, you’ll come back.
Ivan Ramen succeeds on this front (and quite a few others). We made our way back to the train station feeling weighed down only by our yearning for an Ivan Ramen in our little corner of the world. Â
No chance of making it to Ivan’s NYC or Tokyo shops? He has a book out that includes recipes!
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