We have a general rule about chain restaurants: avoid them. Japan made us break that rule repeatedly. Kamukura was the most obvious example.

We ended up at Kamukura after a long day walking around Nara — tired, hungry, and not in the mood to hunt for somewhere. It was right there, it had seats, we went in. The bowl that came out made us both quiet for a solid five minutes.

Kamukura ramen bowl with chashu pork, soft boiled egg, gyoza, karaage and a beer
The full Kamukura spread. Bowl, gyoza, karaage, and a Super Dry. We did not regret the extra sides.

The Bowl

Kamukura specialises in shio (salt) ramen — a lighter, clearer broth style that's easy to underestimate. Where tonkotsu is rich and heavy, shio is clean and precise. Done well, it's one of the more technically demanding styles because there's nothing to hide behind. Kamukura does it well.

The bowl came loaded: three thick slices of chashu pork (properly fatty, slightly charred at the edges), a soft-boiled egg halved perfectly, a handful of spring onion, and a thin sheet of nori. The broth was pale gold and tasted like it had been going for a long time. We ordered extra chashu. Obviously.

The Sides

The gyoza were excellent — thinner skin than we usually get, properly crispy on the bottom, still juicy inside. The karaage was the kind of thing you keep reaching for without noticing. We ordered a Super Dry each, which turned out to be the correct decision.

The total bill for two bowls, two sides each, and two beers was reasonable by any standard. By Japanese chain restaurant standards it was almost absurdly good value.

On Chains in Japan

Japan recalibrated our thinking on chain restaurants. The food culture here is serious enough that even mass-market chains have to maintain a standard that would be considered high-end in most other countries. Kamukura, Ichiran, Ippudo, Yoshinoya — these places are chains in the same way that saying a concert hall is just a room with chairs in it.

Part of it is competition. On any given street in a Japanese city you're surrounded by options, and the market is completely unforgiving. If the food isn't good, people don't come back. There's no coasting on location or convenience the way you can elsewhere.

Order the sides. The gyoza and karaage at Kamukura are worth it. And get a beer — the Super Dry with a bowl of shio ramen is one of the better food pairings we've found in Japan.