Hasegawa Ramen (はせ川 松山店) up in Fukushima's Kitakata region is one of the more popular ramen shops in the area, serving up local Kitakata style ramen in a variety of bowls.
The soup uses a niboshi sardine base as well as pork bones and chicken, flavoured with soy sauce or salt. The kake-ramen options are the basic choices at 550 yen, with additional char siu (up to 3 slices) available to add to the base bowl. Quite why I felt it necessary to max out on char siu I'm not entirely sure—perhaps my image of Kitakata-style ramen was stereotyped by such meat-heavy versions like Bannai—but the char siu was top quality.
Remaining standard toppings include onion, bamboo shoots and Narutomaki slice (fish kamaboko) – many people like to add black pepper too midway, which can mix up the flavour somewhat. You can also add extras for a small ¥100 charge each, like ajitama egg, butter and extra menma (bamboo shoots).
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Saturdays are all about the limited edition menu, 'Black Hasegawa', with additional menu choices such as 'Shimofuri' (with extra pork fat in the soup) and Aka-Shimofuri (a spicy version) suddenly available too.