Who makes the best ramen?

By Ed Morita
Nonstop

Ramen is the perfect comfort food, with slurpable noodles that satisfy your inner kid and broth that instantly warms your core or nurses a hangover after a night of partying.

Even after eating 27 different ramen for this gallery, I’m not tired of it. In fact, I had ramen for dinner the night I wrote this. But with the multitude of ramen places and myriad of variation here in Honolulu, it was difficult to compare, rate and rank them. For instance, Sansei’s crab ramen with Asian truffle broth is probably one of the best ramen anywhere, but it’s hardly fair to compare that to the offerings from a mom-and-pop restaurant on a side street in Kalihi. So to name the best bowl, I leveled the playing field and just ordered basic, bare bones char siu ramen without any fancy additions.

Here’s what made my cut.