TableJourney

Where to eat Onomichi ramen in Hiroshima

A soy bowl from the Hiroshima port town of Onomichi, built on chicken and small-fish stock and finished with cubes of pork back fat that float on the surface.

The story of Onomichi ramen

Onomichi ramen developed in the port town east of Hiroshima, where the Seto Inland Sea supplied dried sardines and other small fish for stock. The bowl combines that seafood base with chicken broth and soy sauce, then adds squares of rendered pork back fat that melt slowly into the surface, giving richness without a heavy tonkotsu body. Flat noodles are the local convention. The style travelled beyond the prefecture faster than Hiroshima city's own chuka soba, and is now the better known of the two nationally.

How to make Onomichi ramen

Serves: Serves 2

Ingredients

  • 1 chicken carcass
  • 30g dried sardines, heads and guts removed
  • 1 piece kombu
  • 1.5 litres water
  • 80ml soy sauce
  • 1 tbsp mirin
  • 80g pork back fat, finely diced
  • 2 portions flat ramen noodles
  • 4 slices braised pork
  • 3 spring onions, sliced
  • 2 tbsp menma

Method

  1. Soak the kombu and dried sardines in the water for 30 minutes.
  2. Add the chicken carcass, bring slowly to a bare simmer and cook for 90 minutes, skimming as needed.
  3. Remove the kombu after 20 minutes so the stock does not turn slippery.
  4. Simmer the diced back fat in a little water for 10 minutes until translucent, then drain.
  5. Strain the stock, return 1 litre to the pan and season with the soy sauce and mirin.
  6. Cook the noodles, drain and divide between bowls. Ladle over the broth.
  7. Top with the pork, menma, spring onion and a generous spoon of the back-fat cubes.

Editor tip. Render the back fat separately rather than in the broth, or the stock clouds and loses the clean soy edge.

The editor picks for Onomichi ramen in Hiroshima are still in research. Meanwhile, see the Hiroshima signature-dishes index or the Hiroshima food guide.