Ramen Oigen 拉麵 おいげん 太宰府店 (Dazaifu, JAPAN) ★★★★☆

After spending one and a half days in Tenjin, it was time to hit the ground running again. While we set our sight on Beppu (別府) as our ultimate destination this afternoon, we are also having stopovers at Dazaifu (太宰府) and Tosu Premium Outlets (鳥栖), so it's a pretty packed schedule ahead.



Rather than checking out Dazaifu Tenman-gū (太宰府天満宮) and Dazaifu Tenmangu Omotesando immediately, we decided to put our car in the garage and enjoy a bowl of ramen first.

Situated just across the street from Dazaifu Train Station, Ramen Oigen (拉麵 おいげん) is a 12-seater ramen shop specializing in tonkotsu (pork bone based) ramen.

As usual, little nugget orders through the vending machine for us.

What a treat to be sitting at the counter! The smoky flavors of charcoal grilled pork belly smell so good~!

Tonkotsu ramen – This came with three slices of smoky pork belly, a slice of shoulder loin, soft-boiled egg and bamboo shoots. The first thing I noticed was of course the creamy and tangy broth.

The egg nicely done.

I thought the pork belly could be a little more charred and I certainly won't mind a little fat in there. 😁

The thick broth worked really well with the thin and eggy noodles as expected. There were diced pork belly on the bottom of the broth and I thought they tasted even better than the slices of pork belly floating atop of the noodles. The shoulder loin was also succulent.

Shrimp shoyu ramen – The soy sauce based broth was blended with aromatic shrimp oil so I could smell the umami-rich flavors from miles away. 

This wasn't bad at all but I thought the broth didn't cling to the noodles as well as the tonkotsu broth did.

So glad to find this little ramen shop near the train station. Now time to explore Dazaifu and we have about an hour or so to do so. 

Food Rating: 6.4/10

Price: ￥￥￥

Address: 1-10-32 Saifu, Dazaifu, Fukuoka, 818-0117 Japan

Closest Train Station: Dazaifu

Tel: +81 (0)92-408-8697

Website: www.ramen-oigen.com

Opening Hours: 10:00am - 5:00pm daily