Hokkaido · HakodateNo.976★★★Open in map →

Hakodate Shio Ramen

— Hokkaido's clear salt-broth ramen

foodThe classic — done right

Hakodate's ramen is the clear one: pork bone cooked gently enough that the broth stays transparent, seasoned with salt. This is the harbour quarter the dish traces back to, with a free city building as the place to start.

FromHakodate Station
~10 minHakodate City Tram + walk
Get off atJujigai tram stop (Hakodate City Tram)
From there
Hakodate Shio Ramen

Directions ↗

Where it is

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What to look for — in walking order

Hakodate Community Design Center掬茶 / CC BY-SA 4.0

Jujigai tram stopthe junction where the two tram routes divide
Hakodate Community Design Centera former department store, three storeys, free to walk into
The tower stairwell and hand-operated liftkept in service in a five-storey tower left standing for it
The tram street through Suehiro-chothe six-hundred-metre run of track toward the next stop
Suehirocho tram stopthe seaward stop on the route to Hakodate Dokku-mae

How to actually get there

Hakodate Station → Hakodateekimae tram stop (a short walk from the station front).
Hakodateekimae → Jujigai by Hakodate City Tram; both routes stop there.
Jujigai → the Community Design Center, a short walk down the tram street.
Read the free ground-floor displays, then pick a ramen shop in the quarter for later.

Hakodate City Tram from Hakodate Station to Jujigai: From Hakodate Station walk to the Hakodateekimae tram stop and take either tram route toward Jujigai, which both routes serve. Get off at Jujigai; the Community Design Center is a short walk along the tram street. Fares are distance-based and paid when you get off.
Return from Jujigai: Trams run back from Jujigai to Hakodateekimae on both routes, so you rarely wait long in the daytime. Service does not run through the night, so check the last departure posted at the stop if you are eating in the evening.

Directions from my location (Google Maps) ↗

About the place

Salt ramen is what Hakodate contributes to Hokkaido's ramen map, and the Ministry of Agriculture lists it beside Sapporo's miso and Asahikawa's soy. The broth is built on pork bone with little fat in it, and Hakodate's own tourism office adds chicken, kelp and dried scallop to the pot. The point of the cooking is restraint: the stock is held below a rolling boil so it never clouds. Straight noodles go in, and the toppings stay few — sliced pork, spring onion, bamboo shoot. Suehiro-cho, the old trading quarter along the tram line, is where the story starts, and the city runs a free building there that makes an easy place to begin.

How to enjoy it

The centre is open from 9:00 to 21:00, which is longer than almost anything else in the quarter, so it works either side of a meal. Come in the late afternoon, look at the tower stairwell and the old lift, then walk the tram street while the shopfronts light up. Ramen shops here keep their own schedules, so choose on the day rather than in advance.

Background & history

In 1884 an advertisement in a Hakodate newspaper offered nankin soba for fifteen sen, and it is often cited as the earliest known printed record of ramen in Japan. The Western-style restaurant that placed it stood in Funaba-cho, the district now called Suehiro-cho. The building that anchors this entry went up in 1923 as a department store and gained its tower stairwell and lift in 1930. The city reopened it as a community centre in 2007.

Before you go

Cash: The building itself is free to enter. On the tram you board at the rear, take a numbered ticket, and pay at the front when you leave; the major Japanese IC cards including Kitaca, Suica and ICOCA are accepted, and a one-day tram pass is sold for visitors making several hops.
Good to know: The centre keeps long daily hours and closes only over the new year. Ramen shops set their own days and hours, so treat any single bowl as something to confirm on the day rather than to plan a trip around. Winter brings snow and ice to the tram street, so grip on your shoes matters.
Another way: You can also stay on the tram one stop further to Suehirocho, on the route toward Hakodate Dokku-mae, and walk back along the tram street to the centre.
After you get off: From Jujigai the tram street runs toward the harbour. The centre is the pale three-storey building with a domed corner tower, on the seaward side of the junction, a couple of minutes on foot.