Iekei Ramen: Yokohama's Signature House-Style Ramen

Iekei ramen, house-style ramen, developed in Yokohama starting in the 1970s, combining pork-bone tonkotsu richness with a soy sauce (shoyu) base, giving it a heavier, saltier profile than lighter Tokyo-style shoyu ramen. The noodles are thick, straight, and firm rather than curly, closer in feel to udon than to typical thin ramen noodles, and are meant to hold up to the broth's weight rather than getting lost in it.

A typical bowl comes with a slab of chashu pork, a sheet of nori, and a mound of boiled spinach, and most shops let you customize the broth's richness, oil level, and noodle firmness when ordering — a level of customization iekei ramen is particularly known for. The style spread well beyond Yokohama over the following decades and now has shops nationwide, but its roots and the highest concentration of shops remain in Kanagawa.