Boston's Best Ramen Shop

The Daily Meal recently published our 25 Best Ramen Shops in America for 2014, and in order to compile our ranking, we contacted the leading culinary authorities around the country to ask them about their personal favorite shops are (sticking to restaurants that specialize in ramen and noodles as oppose to you sushi bars with one bowl of ramen on the menu), and we supplemented those suggestions with ramen shops featured in local reviews and also consulted pre-existing local rankings. We then took that list of more than 100 shops from across the country and concocted a survey, with the shops separated by region. We invited our group of trusted panelists (made up of chefs, bloggers, journalists, and other culinary authorities) to vote for their favorites, and more than 30, including the Los Angeles Times' Jonathan Gold and our fleet of city editors, cast their votes. In the end there was one clear winner, but the top shops aren't all found in ramen hotspots like New York and the Bay Area; there's great ramen all over America, including Boston.

The ramen boom has finally made its way to Bean Town, and Inaka in Allston is leading the charge. This eight-table ramen and donburi shop serves their ramen in a large bowl with a huge wooden spoon, and the soup – in varieties like shoyu, miso, yakibuta, and a cold hiyashi chukka – comes loaded with thick slices of pork, and is rich without being greasy.

Inaka is the only ramen shop in Boston to make our list, so it's unequivocally the best ramen shop in the city this year.

Kate Kolenda is the Restaurant and City Guide Editor at The Daily Meal. Follow her on Twitter @BeefWerky and @theconversant.