Gattsuri Ebisuko — Restaurant in Toyama

I heard black ramen is the famous style in Toyama so gave it a try.

First, I need to say the staff were very friendly and cheerful. Ordering is done through a ticket machine but I could not find an option for English so best to study the katakana and kanji of the ramen you want on here first before you go. But there was a staff member by the machine watching me order so perhaps they could assist those who can’t read Japanese. But all in all the store itself is a great place to drop by for some food. Right across the street from the station too. I arrived around 11:15 and there were plenty of open seats and tables.

That being said, Toyama black ramen is pretty average in my opinion. It basically tastes like a very strong shoyu (soy sauce) ramen, with a bit of extra seasoning from the char siu being covered with pepper. It tastes like someone overseasoned fried rice. The ramen did come with some small bits of rice cracker which surprisingly did not soak up the broth that much, so that actually was a pretty refreshing break between the salty slurps of noodles. Speaking of which, the noodles were awkwardly clumped together as if they were undercooked a bit, but the taste and texture were fine so not a big deal.

Overall it still tastes fine as long as you can handle a really strong salty soy sauce flavor. I don’t normally eat desserts but I was craving something sweet...

I really don't understand how people like it... The service is great, friendly, spacious place, easy to order, just across the station. But the food... I don't even know where to start. Plus point if you are broke, the portion is HUGE. I can eat it for lunch and dinner and would still be too full (and i ordered small size) The meat is HUGE its like a big chunk of pork meat with thick fat and meat. Usually we only get thinly sliced pork if we are eating ramen, but this is THICC, it probably serves 10 portion of usual ramen. Now the soup.. the flavour is new, but not bad. It's just hella salty. Like the type of salty where your lips get all wrinkly by the end of the meal. The noodle, it is so thick I thought its udon. And abit undercooked? There are 6 of us and we all get the same texture, so I think it was on purpose. I just don't know how to enjoy this. The gyoza is good though, you...

I absolutely love ramen and have tried a lot, but this was the first bowl I wasn't able to finish. Everything is just unbelievably salty. The marinated bamboo tastes like pure salt, the pork is tender but seems to be marinated in extra salty soy sauce for days, so it's also nearly inedible. The noodles are very thick and chewy, but have a bad texture unlike for example udon noodles. The broth is also nothing special, overall there's absolutely no balance or flavor besides salt. I got no comparison to other Toyama Black Ramen places, but if that's supposed to be that way, then it's by far the worst ramen style I've ever tried. Also the price is very high for what you're getting. Only positives are the very convenient location directly opposite the train station and the friendly and attentive staff. Absolutely not...