Nagoya, Aichi, Japan｜一風堂 金山店

This ramen restaurant was recommended to me by my wife. It is just across the street from Kanayama subway exit, located right on the main street. We arrived on Thursday, 15:00 and the restaurant was almost empty. Maybe about 8 people when we came in. You can choose your seat right at the main counter and see the cooks preparing your food, or sit at separate counter or a table for two. There did not seem to be an English language menu. Just basic picture menu with explanations. This is a bit different restaurant - you do not order directly at the waiter, but you mark your order into prepared sheet. You can choose various kinds of ramen with different flavours, or choose basic (but also good) ramen and add your own toppings, like egg, bamboo shots, seaweed, corn,.............. There are pictures of all toppings available and it is not difficult to match name written on the picture with the collon on the sheet. Ice cold tea was for free (summer when we visited), drinks like beer (bottle, not from tap) you have to order. You can also choose how soft or hard your ramen will be. Since it is written in Kanji, I recommend you asking the staff (just ask "sofuto?" and you will know which one is soft and which one not) We ordered two ramen and gyoza and were recommended to go for gyoza and rice as side dish as it was actually cheaper than 10 single pieces of gyoza we ordered (strange, since we got 10 pieces of gyoza and two bowls of rice for half of the price than if we just ordered 10 pieces of gyoza). Welcome to the menu combination hell in Japan :) The ramen came in about 2-5 minutes, so really quick. Gyoza came few minutes later, but really not an issue at all. Both ramen were really delicious and had ballanced flavour. You could add red ginger or crush garlic - up to you. They also offer different seasonings like Tabasco, pepper and sesame. Basic ramen is from 700JPY, toppings are 100JPY each. They also offer full topping ramen for nearly 1000JPY, which I would recommend as it was cheaper than if you ordered the cheap ramen and put same toppings by yourself (again, I do not understand why...). Gyoza is for 200JPY or 400JPY, it depends if you go just for gyoza or also with rice (with rice it is cheaper). The place is wheelchair accessible, although it may be bit narrow for a wheelchair. So do not get my word on that. No free WiFi inside and no free WiFi is reaching this place neither. Toilets are clean, as one would expect in Japan (do I have to even mention toilets in Japan?).

Firstly they do have an English menu and at the time we went there, there was also one person who spoke English. Basically a counter service Ramen place with Shoyu soup base or Tonkotsu soup base ramen. The char sui was really nicely flavoured and was the best part of the dish. The bite size gyōza wasn't bad too but maybe a little oily. Overall would come again. Restaurant music is 80s pop like Rick Astley, Bananarama, George Michael, Pet Shop Boys etc...

Delicious soup and generous portion. Best ramen in town ! Nice BGM as well.