Akahoshi Ramen in Chicago evolved from a hard-to-get-into pop-up into a full-fledged, hard-to-get-into restaurant. Reservations are booked five weeks out, and a line forms outside 30 minutes before they open. But once you’ve finagled your way into a seat and had your first taste of their ramen, it’s clear why. Each of their four bowls is distinct, with only a handful of toppings, giving every ingredient room to showcase its flavor. But the must-order is their namesake dish, the Akahoshi Miso.

There’s a perpetual line in front of Mensho Tokyo in SF, but it's one of the few places worth giving up an hour (or more) of your evening to wait. Their ramen with housemade noodles is the best in the city. The creamy and umami-packed chicken-based broth alone will single-handedly make you black out whatever time you spent standing outside. There are a handful of options, including soupless mazesoba and a version incorporating matcha.

Midnite Ramen serves the best ramen in Seattle, all inside of a Fremont taproom. The onomichi ramen has a shoyu broth with flecks of pork fat ethereally floating on top, and the wontonmen has the best of both worlds—long chewy noodles and delicately wrapped pork and shrimp wontons. Take those tasty noodle bowls out on Figurehead's secret patio, and pair them with excellent kushiyaki from Ooshiba Yakitori & Sushi that shares the same kitchen space.

It’s worth making return visits to LA’s Sawtelle Boulevard just to eat at both Tsujita and its sister spot, Tsujita Annex across the street. We’ve made lots of visits to both over the years, and we can’t decide which one we prefer—one has thicker noodles and a lighter broth, while the other has thinner noodles and a richer broth. When in doubt, choose the one with the shortest line and you won’t be disappointed. Their tsukemen dip ramen is a pork and seafood umami explosion.

The tonkotsu ramen at Tomo Sushi & Ramen is the perfect cloudy soup for every cloudy day. All of the ramen options are some of the best in town with perfectly cooked noodles, but our go-to is their warm, creamy bowl of tonkotsu. It's loaded with bamboo shoots, black fungus, red ginger, and scallions, but the pork base and tender chasu really steal the show.

As soon as you step inside the door at Okiboro House of Tsukemen, you’ll feel like you’re in a meeting for a secret society of ramen enthusiasts. You'll hear strangers who waited in the long but quick-moving line telling each other how "bomb" their bowl was. We agree. The namesake tsukemen at Okiboro comes with udon-like cold noodles that you dip in a warm broth, and it tastes like it’s made with a million bonito flakes.

Every bowl of ramen at this Japanese-Taiwanese restaurant in Houston arrives fast, scorching hot, and beautifully composed with thick cuts of rich chashu pork, aromatic broth, and a really cute wooden spoon. We crave the signature spicy tantan ramen with its double pork (chashu and spicy ground pork), squishy kikurage mushrooms, and thick, chili-spiced broth. And the tonkotsu black garlic ramen with silken pork broth, a deep and comforting garlic-umami bomb.

Miami isn’t a ramen town, which makes a near-flawless bowl from Dumplings Mi Amor all the more special. Your favorite anime would have a tough time drawing a shoyu ramen that looks as perfect as the one here. And if, hypothetically, a clerical error forced Dumplings Mi Amor to go without noodles for a day, we’d still come here just to slurp the Sapporo ramen’s miso broth with its little bits of ground pork. Don’t let the name fool you: this is a ramen destination—and the very best one in Miami.

Whether you’re looking to warm up on a chilly winter night in Nashville or nurse a hangover from an evening of too many boilermakers, come here for a massive bowl of umami-packed ramen—which is way tastier than one of those mobile IV services. The creamy pork broth in the miso tonkotsu is filled with hunks of tender pork belly, housemade hakata noodles, and a hefty ramen egg that make for an attention-commanding flavor combo.

At Yume Wo Katare in Boston, the only decision you have to make is whether you want two or five slices of chashu in your ramen. The only menu item is a giant bowl of thick, chewy noodles swimming in rich pork broth, which is absolutely worth the inevitable wait to get in. After you finish, the staff will ask you if you’d like to stand up and share your dreams out loud with the other 15 to 20 diners in the tiny shop (Yume Wo Katare loosely translates to “tell your dream” in Japanese).