What is Ibaraki's stamina ramen?

Ibaraki-style stamina ramen is a powerful bowl of ramen with a unique sweet and spicy flavor, made with plenty of ingredients such as liver, pumpkin, and cabbage, all wrapped up in a thick sauce.

Stamina ramen (commonly known as "hot") with chicken-based soup and soup,The two most popular varieties are the soupless version "Stamina Chilled."Furthermore, stamina chilled noodles can be eaten all year round.

Ibaraki-style stamina ramen has a history of about half a century.

Stamina ramen originated when the owner of Daishin, a ramen shop in front of JR Katsuta Station, came up with the idea for ankake ramen, which was then created by the shop manager, Junichi Nagai. Later, Tora-san Ramen, where Nagai was the manager, opened, and in the 1970s, the restaurant was given the name "Stamina Ramen." Nagai later went independent and opened Stamina Ramen Matsugoro in Mito City. It gained popularity and stamina ramen spread both within and outside the prefecture.

Ibaraki Shimbun, October 26, 2016

There seem to be various theories as to where the "origin" is.

However, this Ibaraki-style stamina ramen is mainly eaten in Hitachinaka and Mito cities, and there are few restaurants serving it outside of these areas.

So, this time, we looked for restaurants that serve "stamina ramen that can be easily enjoyed even if you are coming from the southern part of the prefecture," with the criterion being that they can be reached by car from Tsuchiura Station, the center of the southern part of the prefecture.

[Tsukuba City] Stamina Ramen Jinbo

First, we went to "Stamina Ramen Jinbo" in Tsukuba City. It was the most popular stamina ramen restaurant in the southern part of the prefecture, but closed in 2024 due to the owner's poor health."Eager"Jimbo Kota, who worked at, opened in May 2025.

"Stamina" made by a shop owner from the ramen-producing region of Yamagata

Jimbo is originally from Yamagata Prefecture, a ramen-rich region, and used to visit ramen shops on a daily basis. He became addicted to stamina ramen while he was a student in Ibaraki, and after working at Gamusha, he ended up opening his own shop.

They offer "Cold Stamina" and "Hot Stamina", 1 regular serving of noodles150In grams,Separate fee applies for half balls 3You can even increase the number of balls.

The stamina chilled ramen starts with a sweet and spicy soy sauce base that is easy to eat and rich in flavour, and the thick noodles and vegetables blend seamlessly together in a way that is instantly absorbed into your mouth.

It has a pleasant, sweet and spicy taste without being cloyingly sweet. The flavor emphasizes richness, and the aim is to create a cup with a strong, layered umami flavor, and the taste conveys that intention.

"Stamina ramen was originally started as a way to fill students up by using cheap ingredients like liver, so we were conscious of making it filling and tasty. Nowadays, the cost of ingredients has risen sharply, so we can't offer it cheaply..." says Jinbo with a look of regret on his face.

Making this stamina ramen is hard work. "I have to make several servings of ramen with thick sauce and vegetables in a wok, so it's incredibly heavy and I'm starting to get tendonitis," he said, showing us his well-trained, thick arms.

About 350 grams of vegetables!

One serving is what a person should consume per dayYou can get about 350 grams of whole vegetables.It's a delicious bowl of soup with plenty of pumpkin, carrots, chives, cabbage, and liver.

"I try to make sure the colors of the vegetables stand out beautifully. I think the green and yellow colors of stamina ramen are beautiful, delicious, and appetizing," he says, and each 350 gram serving is cut by hand.

According to Jinbo, "Cut vegetables lose their freshness and moisture over time after being cut," so he insists on cutting the vegetables into large pieces in the store.

The spiciness is adjusted to a level that is easy for people of all ages and genders to eat, and those who don't like spicy food, such as children, can choose to leave out the chili pepper. You can add chili pepper, mustard, or vinegar to your liking, and Jimbo recommends the mustard.

It wasn't too sweet, nor too spicy, and had a pleasantly sweet and spicy flavor that is the essence of stamina ramen. It was quite creamy, and the cabbage was just the right softness. I ate it enthusiastically and it was gone in an instant.

A taste that will help you forget about your troubles and give you energy

Stamina Ramen Jinbo is loved by stamina fans south of Tsukuba.
"I've been waiting for this," he says, "or I was so impressed after eating it for the first time in a while." He's happy to hear such comments. "I want to continue to carry on the important things while also trying out new things, and increase the number of my own Guest/customer."

And Jinbo also said:

"I want it to be a flavor that helps you forget about the bad things and gives you energy to move on to the next thing. That's what I want it to be."

Stamina Ramen Jimbo

• 〒300-3261 3-12-8 Hanabata, Tsukuba City, Ibaraki Prefecture Palnet Otake MAP
• 25 minutes by car from Tsuchiura Station
• Take the Kanto Railway Bus from Tsuchiura Station West Exit to Azuma Jutaku (21 minutes), then transfer to Tsukuba Center (TX Tsukuba Station) and take the 11-minute ride to the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention, then walk for 2 minutes.
• 11:30-14:00, 18:00-20:00 (currently open irregularly at night)
• Sunday, Monday
• free

[Kasama City] Stamina Ramen Ichishin

Located in Kasama City, north of Tsuchiura, is "Stamina Ramen Isshin." This is also a self-styled restaurant run by a former apprentice of "Tora-san Ramen," said to be the originator of stamina ramen, who honed his skills and has continued to pass on the ramen's flavor.

Manager IwaiShinjiAfter training, he opened his own restaurant, Garyu Shokudo Tomobe Branch, in 2014, and moved to a location about 500 meters away in 2017. At that time, he changed the name of the restaurant to Stamina Ramen Ichishin.

Stamina Ramen and Stamina Chilled Ramen have been signature dishes since the days of Garyu Shokudo, and together they sell about 100 servings of each a day, with chilled ramen available in hot weather and hot ramen in cold weather. Here, I had the hot ramen.

This is a huge amount of liver!

If you order the "Stamina Ramen Regular HOT," a bowl filled to the brim with ingredients and soup will be served.

Iwai also said, "I put in a lot of vegetables and liver," and the noodles were made by a company specifically for Kazunobu's stamina ramen.

It is loaded with liver, the staple of stamina ramen, as well as soft and easy-to-eat vegetables such as carrots, cabbage, and pumpkin.The soup is filled with a generous amount of liver, to the point that you'll be amazed.

Many people say they absolutely hate the smell of liver, so at Isshin,Completely removes odorsThat's right, I was able to eat it easily without any unpleasant odor.

For those who don't like liver, there is a nice service where the liver is omitted and instead other ingredients such as cabbage and carrots are added.

Furthermore, the process of making the impressively chewy stamina paste is difficult, and during his training at Garyu Shokudo, it took him more than a year to be able to make a paste that was "neither too loose nor too hard, and that clung to the noodles."

The most difficult parts are adjusting the heat and the amount of potato starch, and even now, they are constantly adjusting the stamina bean paste to suit the ingredients and climate of the time.

Another thing they are particular about is the sweet and spicy balance of the stamina bean paste. They carefully adjust the spiciness with chili pepper so that it is sweet the moment you eat it and gradually gets spicier as you continue to eat it.

In addition to rare seafood stamina, there are also stamina bowls?

A tradition dating back to the days of Ga-ryu Shokudo, the restaurant offers an unusual topping of "horumon (offal)." Apparently, pouring stewed offal over the stamina sauce is exceptional, but the origin of this is the culture of northern Kanto, where stewed offal is also popular in Kasama.

Furthermore, the seafood broth stamina ramen is a rare dish, with few restaurants offering it even in Ibaraki. It has a flavor that evokes the image of stamina ramen with the addition of seafood, and is said to be well-received and popular. Sea bream is the main ingredient, with scallops added as a secret ingredient.

The unique "Stamina Bowl," which is a bowl of stamina bean paste, is also popular and comes with a set of flying fish broth ramen. Many people take out just the stamina filling on top, and enjoy it at home by pouring it over rice.

According to Iwai, "There are many restaurants in Hitachinaka and Mito, so I wanted to open one in Kasama, where there are no restaurants that serve stamina ramen." The restaurant has become a much-anticipated favorite among locals, and is frequented by ramen enthusiasts.

The hotel is close to a highway interchange, and apparently customers come all the way from the southern part of the prefecture, as well as Tochigi and Chiba. Around 40% of the customers are women, and many of them come alone.

Stamina Ramen Kazushin

• 404 Asahicho, Kasama City, Ibaraki Prefecture MAP
• 38 minutes by car from Tsuchiura Station
• Take the Tokiwa Express from JR Tsuchiura Station for 23 minutes, get off at Tomobe Station, take the Ibaraki Kotsu bus for 7 minutes from the Tomobe Station bus stop, then walk for 5 minutes
• 11:00 - 14:00 (LO13:50) 17:30 - 20:00 (LO19:50)
• Wednesday
• 0296-73-6311
• free

[Omitama City] Chinrai Omitama store

Founded in 1928, Chinrai is said to be one of the oldest ramen chains in Japan. Its Omitama store opened in 2016. Incidentally, Omitama is the hometown of Chinrai's founder, and is also a historic location for the group.

In fact, this is the only Chinrai store that serves stamina ramen.

The owner is Tsutomu Furuuchi. He is originally from Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture, and has been with Chinrai for over 30 years, training at the main store and other locations. When the store he previously worked at in Ishioka City, Ibaraki Prefecture, along Route 6, closed, he set up his own store on land owned by Chinrai.

Since opening a restaurant in Ibaraki, they have been serving stamina ramen since around 2021, despite being a Chinese restaurant, with the aim of offering a menu that reflects the local characteristics of Ibaraki.

We sell about 10 servings on weekdays and about 20 servings on weekends, making this a popular dish.

Unconventional stamina ramen

The bowl of ramen that Chinrai Omitama store calls "Stamina Ramen" looks completely different from the stamina ramen we've seen so far. It looks a bit like the Gomoku Ramen you get at a local Chinese restaurant.

Chinrai is known for its thick noodles, but this restaurant has been focusing on thin noodles since 2025. In fact, the noodle factory also produces a variety of other noodles, including thin and curly noodles, and since switching to thin noodles, the restaurant has seen an increase in older customers.

Chinrai's unique egg noodles are a generous 175g, and they also offer a 100 yen discount if you order half a noodle.

Furthermore, while regular stamina ramen contains chili pepper, this ramen uses different spices such as chili bean paste to give it a unique flavor, making it quite spicy.

Unusually, it uses bamboo shoots and chili bean paste.

When it comes to stamina ramen, pumpkin is the first ingredient, but we left it out because we don't use it in other menu items at our restaurant. Instead, we added bamboo shoots, which can be used in a variety of other dishes.

Other ingredients include carrots, chives, onions, cabbage, and liver. The large liver is particularly impressive. The filling uses Chinese rice bowl sauce, and also contains garlic, ginger, sake, and even starch.

This is the spiciest stamina ramen I've ever had, and it has a unique flavor, with a Chinese-derived spiciness that isn't the typical "sweet and spicy" flavor of stamina ramen. It's delicious, with finely chopped vegetables and no pumpkin, making it "something different from regular stamina ramen."

When asked why they decided to serve stamina ramen in Omitama, far from Hitachinaka, they said, "Because it's located along National Route 6, and many different customers come." Route 6 also connects to Hitachinaka and Mito, the home of stamina ramen, which is a plus.

Chinrai Omitama store

• 2269 Takehara, Omitama City, Ibaraki Prefecture MAP
• 31 minutes by car from Tsuchiura Station
• From JR Tsuchiura Station, take the Joban Line to Ishioka Station (14 minutes), then take the Kanto Railway bus from Ishioka Station (8 minutes) to the "Takehara" bus stop, then walk for 4 minutes.
• 11:00-22:00 (last entry 21:20, last order 21:30)
• New Year's Eve, New Year's Day
• 0299-47-1151
• free

In fact, there are few stamina ramen restaurants that are easily accessible from southern Ibaraki Prefecture, and recently the number of restaurants serving it in the Tsukuba area has been decreasing, so it was difficult to find a restaurant that served it, but we were able to visit three valuable stores.

Although it is located in an area far from Hitachinaka and Mito, which are said to be the birthplaces of this drink, you can enjoy a delicious and unique cup of coffee here. Take a trip to experience the charms that only you can appreciate.

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