A restrained soy and pork-bone bowl with thin straight noodles, chashu, spring onion and bean sprouts, still called chuka soba here rather than ramen.
Hiroshima ramen grew from postwar street stalls in the western half of the prefecture, and locals kept the older term chuka soba, meaning Chinese noodles, long after the rest of Japan moved to ramen. The broth is a blend of soy sauce and pork bone, lighter and cloudier than Hakata tonkotsu and darker than a Tokyo shoyu bowl. Youki has cooked the same single-dish menu in Eba since 1958, and Hiroshima shops still tend to serve one bowl and nothing else, with no side menu and no seasonal specials.
3 editor picks for Hiroshima chuka soba in Hiroshima, ranked by editorial score. All Hiroshima signature dishes · Hiroshima chuka soba across every city.
Chukasoba Youki Eba Honten ★ 4.5
eba · 3-4-1 Ebaminami, Naka-ku, Hiroshima
Chukasoba Youki has cooked one dish in Eba since 1958, and its soy and pork-bone bowl is exactly what Hiroshima people mean when they say chuka soba.
Tsubame Ramen ★ 4.0
nishi-ku · 3-2 Higashikanon-machi, Nishi-ku, Hiroshima
Tsubame Ramen works a small Higashi-Kanon room in western Hiroshima, a neighbourhood chuka soba counter rather than a stop on any visitor circuit.
Rai Rai Tei ★ 3.9
minami-ku · 3-3 Nishi-Midori-machi, Minami-ku, Hiroshima
Rai Rai Tei is a plain Minami-ku noodle room in Hiroshima with a split lunch and dinner service and a queue that forms without any signage at all.