We are back, and we have a new project! 1 month + 10 ramen restaurants + 1 official scoresheet.

Last November, Jayzee Eats Stuff and I bought tickets to the first ever San Diego Ramen Festival … and it turned out to be pretty sad. There were maybe five ramen vendors, a few of them not really local. One of them actually had an instant ramen package on display at the front of their booth. Yikes. That was when we decided to organize our own tour of local ramen spots, with which we would determine who served the best bowl in San Diego! (By the way, the 2nd Annual San Diego Ramen Festival has been scheduled, and they’ve seem to be taking the feedback they got last year … They’ve lowered their price, booked more vendors, and gotten a bigger venue. I will probably go.)

That said, we acknowledge that the San Diego ramen scene is not the best. It pales in comparison to, say, Los Angeles, New York, or really any small Japanese village. But ramen is now trendy, and new restaurants have been popping up here, there, and everywhere in San Diego over the last few years. We felt the need to try them all officially, with a score sheet to ensure clear and detailed findings.

From May 29 through June 26, we tried 10 San Diego ramen restaurants. 21 friends participated in the Marathon, although only 4 (whom I like to call the Ramen Core Four) visited all 10 spots. We got a bit ramen-ed out, so from now on, we plan to visit a new place officially once a month (which we shall our “Ramentenance.”)

Ramen Marathon Restaurants (In Alphabetical Order)

• BeShock Ramen & Sake Bar
• Hokkaido Ramen Santouka
• Menya Ultra
• Nishiki Ramen
• Nozaru Ramen Bar
• Rakiraki Ramen & Tsukemen
• Ramen Yamadaya
• Tajima
• Tokyo Ramen
• Yakitori Yakyudori

In the upcoming weeks, we’ll be posting about:

• Our criteria and scoresheet
• Scores for each restaurant, and
• Final results and rankings!