Ramen FeeL: The Disciple's Ramen; Ome, Tokyo

In what may have been the most talked about ramen shop of 2021, Ramen FeeL opened to much anticipation with ramen fanatics from around the country coming to this restaurant in the middle of nowhere, rural Tokyo. Master of Ramen FeeL trained at the famous Iida Shoten, regarded as one of, if not the best ramen restaurant in Japan. While many former apprentices have gone on to open their own ramen restaurant, FeeL is the first to be officially recognized by Iida Shoten. FeeL is open Friday to Tuesday and is closed on Wednesdays and Thursday. Just to be sure, before you make the 1.5+ hour trek out to Ome for FeeL, check their Twitter here. The shop is incredibly far so you don’t want to make the same mistake I did coming on an off day.

First off, the queue. FeeL is incredibly popular and in order to manage the long line, they have instituted a ticket system where customers come in the morning to sign up for whatever time they want to come back at. Sign up sheet opens at 7am and comes out every hour, so plan to be there 10 minutes prior (ie 6:60, 7:50, 8:50) to get your name down at the appropriate time. You can sign up for up to 4 bowls (meaning if you come in a party of 2 and you want 2 bowls each, sign up for 4 slots. Or if you come in a group of 4 you can sign up for 1 bowl each). Shop serves ramen from 10:50 to 15:20 and seats 9 in 30 minutes intervals.

Orders are taken at the table and the menu does vary from day to day, but for the most part they offer Shoyu Ramen, Shoyu Ramen with wontons, Shio Ramen, Shio Ramen with Wontons, and Tsukemen in either Shio or Shoyu which can be supplemented with an extra side of soup to try both for an extra 350 yen. My order for the day was the Shio Ramen with wontons. I came here with Ramen Beast and he ended up getting the Shoyu so you’ll have to ask him how it was. I had a sip just to try it out and it was quite good, but didn’t get the full experience so I’ll just stick to the shio here.

Starting with the soup, have to say, pretty solid showing, but not quite what I was expecting. I think the approach is geared towards refinement in ingredients and letting the master’s years of experience take over, which it definitely does, but it wasn’t as impactful and memorable as I thought it might be. It could have been that I set my expectations way too high, or other ramen fanatics unnecessarily overhyped the ramen, but when I have to travel this far and take out so much time of my schedule to eat this one bowl, I want something to knock me back and wow me. Not to say this wasn’t a delicious bowl, but I honest feel like I could have gotten a similar ramen without spending this much time and effort getting here. Circumstances obviously change everything as this could easily get lines out the door if this was in central Tokyo, but I wonder if my opinion on the ramen would be any different.

Anyways the soup for this Shio bowl is made up of a broth pulled from whole chickens and dried scallops. The shoyu ramen uses an entirely different stock of chicken and duck so really respect the dedication and time of making different stocks for their two different ramen bowls. As for the Shio, you definitely get hit with an impactful punch from the generous ladle of chiyu chicken oil floating on the surface, but you also feel that gentle notes of the scallops coming in at the end, relaxing your palette as you take down the soup. Soup has a nice body to it coming from the use of whole chickens, but I would guess from the translucent color that this was steeped low and steady because the fat emulsion is pretty non existent. I could taste some vibrant aromatic flavors from the fried negi topping, but for the most part enjoyed as is.

Noodles are house made and they remind me of the ones served at Sugimoto and other sort of refined ramen shops serving these light, but impactful soups. The strands have an almost somen like flavor to them and has a slippery outer coating that I’m not the biggest fan of. I know a ton of ramen fanatics actually like this style of noodle making so this is a very subjective take, but they have both a tensile bounciness and chewiness that I just don’t care for. I did think the pairing with the soup though was phenomenal so not complaining about them as part of the bowl overall. Each slurp was just as flavorful as the last and it made sure I could appreciate the chicken and scallop notes of the soup first before their burst flavor when you bite in to them.

My favorite part of the meal was actually the toppings, in particular the grilled chicken which has a crispy, salty skin that was to die for. I think the wontons were solid as well, definitely handmade to order, but I think they were a bit too concerned with it not interfering with the soup, that they didn’t season it aggressively enough to let it stand on it’s own. Very plump, but definitely needs to be eaten directly with the soup to get an extra boost in flavor.

All in all, a fine establishment, but I can’t quite agree with the consensus as the best ramen shop of 2021. I think there was a number of high performing shops that opened last year and this was just one of many that didn’t quite have to spark for me to push it above the rest. Definitely worth a visit though if you’re a ramen fanatic and recommend grabbing multiple tickets to try both the Shio and Shoyu….because my mistake in not ordering both is forcing me to make a repeat visit.