Kagoshima ramen: the Kyushu bowl that owes nothing to Kurume, with pickles and tea on the house

Every other ramen in Kyushu can be traced, by someone’s account, back to a cauldron in Kurume. Kagoshima’s cannot. At the southern end of the island, the ramen is paler, softer and gentler than the rest, it comes with a dish of pickled radish and a small pot of tea that nobody charges you for, and the Ramen Museum records the local claim that it is the one Kyushu style that owes nothing to Kurume.

Where it came from

The museum’s Kagoshima page names the first shop as Noboruya, opened in 1947 by a woman named Michioka Tsuna, who had learned noodle-making in Yokohama; Komurasaki, the other founding name, followed in 1949. Both began within two years of Kurume’s white soup, but from a different source — Yokohama rather than the Chikugo river — which is the basis of the claim that Kagoshima developed on its own.

What makes it Kagoshima ramen

The soup. Pork bone is the base, but the museum says chicken carcasses and vegetables go in as well, and the result is “mild” rather than the thick, strong pork of Kurume.

The noodle. Soft, and whitish — made, the museum notes, without kansui, the alkaline water that gives most ramen noodles their yellow colour and spring. It is closer to a Chinese soup noodle than to anything else in Kyushu.

On top. Scorched spring onion (kogashi negi) is the distinctive addition, with pork and, at many shops, cabbage or bean sprouts.

On the side. Pickled daikon, free and refillable at most shops, and a small teapot of tea. The museum lists both as standard.

Why Kagoshima

The founders learned in Yokohama, not Kurume, and the city at the far end of the island kept its own habits. Kagoshima is also pork country — the black-pig prefecture — which makes the gentleness of the soup more surprising, not less; this is a city that could have made the heaviest tonkotsu in Japan and chose not to.

The shops, and what they charge

Noboruya’s and Komurasaki’s current prices could not be confirmed from an official page, so none are given.

How to eat it

Eat the pickles between mouthfuls; drink the tea after. There is no refill and no hardness question, and the noodle is meant to be soft.

Kagoshima ramen away from Kagoshima

Komurasaki has shops outside the prefecture, but the style has travelled less than any other Kyushu ramen, partly because it does not fit the “Kyushu = tonkotsu” story that sells elsewhere. The pickles and tea are the first thing to go at a shop outside Kagoshima; if they are on the counter, the shop has been paying attention.

Getting there

Kagoshima-Chūō is the southern terminus of the Kyushu Shinkansen; the founding shops are in the city centre.

What people get wrong

• “Kyushu ramen is all one family.” Kagoshima is the exception the museum records.
• “Soft noodles are overcooked.” Here they are made without lye water, and soft is the design.
• “The pickles are a side order.” They are free, and they are part of the bowl.