Katsumaru

If it's hearty shoyu (soy sauce) ramen you're after, Katsumaru is hard to beat. Owner Katsuhiko Goto moved from Aomori to Tokyo in the late '60s to realise his dream of opening a ramen shop, working as a taxi driver before starting up his own noodle truck business in 1971. Katsumaru first opened in Shirokane in 1984, moving to its current Meguro home in 1991, though it never lost its old-school, street stall roots – or flavour. There's some real depth to the soup here, made with a mixture of tonkotsu (pork bones), chicken skin and seafood stock. The standard shoyu ramen (¥720) comes with all the traditional Tokyo-style trimmings – chashu pork slices, menma, naruto (fish paste) slice and nori seaweed – and they also offer variations including shio, miso and tanmen.