大阿蘇ラーメン火の国 — Restaurant in Aso

I give 3 stars for the unique experience and support the owner since it's a small shop in a remote location, must be hard to make a living.

We visited at night for dinner, it was all dark already, street lights are very weak, we need to use the phone to light up the road. The shop is located inside an alley, a bit hard to find at night. You need to be courageous to walk into that dark shady alley filled with boxes, random stuff and street cat...

It's just the owner running the resto, he take order, cook, serve, all by himself. Quite cold and weird towards foreigners, no welcome no thank you, when we enter the store, the owner look at us for a second with a frustrated sad face, then walk away, super awkward. But when his friends, local Japanese customers came in, he would talk loud and happy with them.

There is no menu, only lot of handwritten Japanese on the wall that I think are the dish Names, most of them without photo or anything to explain. Luckily we checked google map, know that there is a signature ramen, and the name and photo is on wall (the only dish name with photo with it), so we were able to order the signature ramen with assorted ingredients.

Ramen taste just ok, soup is a bit bland, not rich and savory enough, just use lot of black garlic oil to cover the weak soup taste. I guess I had too high expectation after knowing their ramen was the finalist of a local ramen competition.

There is a payment box, you just put the money into the box, get change from the box, not understand why the owner want to do this way. Owner would ask you to vote his ramen in a Kyushu ramen competition in order to get 300yen discount.

Owner open the door the whole time, didn't feel air-con or he didn't even turn on, it's quite hot inside, even hotter while eating. Getting worse, I got mosquito bite few times and got few red spots, lot of big mosquitos flying around...

Best ramen I’ve ever had. No offense to other restaurants in this area, but if you’re looking for one evening meal with in Aso, this is it. I think the bad reviews are perhaps just unfamiliarity. We had the special/original, all ingredients handmade by this gentleman, and he did his best to talk us through it all despite the language barrier. He was there if we wanted to ask questions but otherwise left us to be, which wasn’t a bad thing. This one was of those meals so satisfying that I left feeling...

東京からの一人旅、ラーメンが食べたくなってホテル近くのこちらのお店に。 店はどこだ？って感じでとりあえず駐車。 角にスナックがあり、奥に進んでみるとお店はあった。スナックの跡地で営業されてるようなノスタルジックな店内。地元のお客さんがひとり。そしてマスターがひとり。渋い雰囲気だなぁと思いながら全部のせの大阿蘇らーめん大盛(ランチサービス)を注文。まず店内の雰囲気に驚いたが、次に水の美味さに驚いた。さすが阿蘇の水。マスターは気さくに話しかけてくれる。「阿蘇の人？観光？」　私は東京からと答える。なんとマスターは熊本出身だが東京で何十年も商売してた方だった。マスターの話を聞いていると人生の厚み、人としての深い年輪を感じる。会話をしながら作ってくれたラーメンは見た目にも美しく、愛を感じる仕上がり。 見事に阿蘇の自然とマリアージュされた至福の一杯。角の取れた成熟された味。もちろんスープは全飲み。大満足だ。熊本市で食べた某ラーメン店を一瞬で抜き去った。 途中に地元の方も来店されたが一人一人に合わせた接客をされていて、満足して帰って欲しいというハートを感じる。 地元の方も観光客もウェルカムなスタイルなので居心地がとても良かった。車ではなく、時間が許すならばしばらく酒を飲みたかったな。 宮崎駿の世界観とロックを感じるような素晴らしいお店だった。 帰り際、「また彼女連れてきてね、良い旅を」って。素敵過ぎやしませんか？ 阿蘇に行くなら...