The Ramen Roundup: 8 Ramen Restaurants in Amsterdam - Rated, Amsterdam, Netherlands

I was all ready to publish this article when another ramen restaurant opened in Amsterdam, which just goes to show how hot the ramen trend seems to be right now… It seemed like a waste not to try it and make this list a little more complete, albeit I’ll have probably failed in my quest for completeness by the end of the week - such is the pace of new openings. But before we get into all the noodly details, let me start with a caveat: I’ve never been to Japan. I’ve never even eaten ramen outside of Amsterdam. I’m comparing these places on a level playing field - but I’ve never played on another field, as it were. So I’m no expert - I’m simply speaking as I find, according to my own subjective tastes. With that in mind, and without further ado, I bring you my Ramen Amsterdam Roundup: what you should eat at eight ramen restaurants, and how I rate them against each other. Slurp, slurp!

I tried seven different types of ramen soup in one sitting - yes, that’s some serious ramen dedication for you.

A relative newcomer on the Vijzelstraat, Takeichi gets packed with locals and tourists every lunchtime. The occasion I visited, I got the Nouko spicy chicken ramen with egg. The flavour of the broth was good (savoury and spicy), but a bit too thick for my taste and overly salty by the bottom of the bowl. The toppings in general were a highlight: I liked the little chicken meatball, thick slices of chicken, and spring onions. I wasn’t so keen on the raw yellow onions and slimy brown things that said they were bamboo shoots but had a texture very like mushrooms. The egg (which cost extra) was perfectly cooked, although seemed to have been chucked into the soup from cold. Unfortunately, the seaweed was also an optional extra so I didn’t get to taste that. In fact, a general point I’d make is that several of the newer ramen places seem to offer many of the toppings as optional extras - so what starts out as a €14 bowl of soup quickly tots up to €20 if you add in all the elements you’d actually want. ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).