- PlateDiary
- Made for
- Ramen lovers
Made for · Ramen lovers
Your own ramen ranking, bowl by bowl.
Ramen rankings online are someone else’s taste. The one worth keeping is yours: every bowl you’ve had, what the broth was like, and whether you’d queue in the rain for it again.
Free on iPhone and Android. No account, and it works with no signal.
Where do I usually go with Ana?
Looking through 126 saves
Kōya — five of your seven tables with Ana were there. You both order the tuna steak, and the last time was Friday, with Ben too.
Kōya6 visits · usually with Ana
Tuna steakshared 4 times
Loaded nachosFri · Kōya
In short
A personal ramen ranking is a list of every bowl you’ve eaten, scored on broth, noodles, toppings and balance. To build one without a notebook, snap each bowl: PlateDiary keeps it with the shop, your stars and notes, and how many times you’ve been back.
Checked
Tasting
What to note about a bowl.
| Ask yourself | Words that help | |
|---|---|---|
| Broth | Rich or clean? Deep, salty, fatty? Still hot at the end? | creamy, porky, bright, flat |
| Style | Shoyu, shio, miso, tonkotsu, or something in between? | soy-forward, sea-salty, nutty |
| Noodles | Thin or thick, straight or wavy, firm or soft — and did they hold? | springy, chewy, gone soft |
| Toppings | Was the chashu tender? The egg jammy? Anything there just for show? | melting, smoky, dry |
| Balance | Was the last spoonful as good as the first? | clean finish, too heavy |
Copy it
A ramen scoring template.
Score each part out of five and add them up. A total out of 25 keeps you honest when every bowl feels like the best one in the moment.
- 21–25: five stars, cross town for it.
- 17–20: four stars, your usual nearby.
- 13–16: three stars, glad you tried it.
- 12 or under: the bowl you tell friends to skip.
| Out of | Tonkotsu, shop A | Shio, shop B | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Broth | 5 | 5 | 4 |
| Noodles | 5 | 3 | 5 |
| Toppings | 5 | 4 | 3 |
| Balance | 5 | 3 | 5 |
| Would queue again | 5 | 4 | 5 |
| Total | 25 | 19 | 22 |
In PlateDiary
Your ranking, without a spreadsheet.
Snap the bowl, give it stars, put the scores in the note. Name it the same way every time — the name comes back as a one-tap chip — and the counts add up. Search Places for ramen and every shop comes up with how many bowls you’ve had there. Filter the map to four stars and up and you have your ramen map.
One page
A collection of every bowl.
With Premium, type a sentence like “ramen this year” and a smart collection gathers every bowl that fits. The phone reads the sentence first. Leave “add new saves that fit” on and the next bowl joins by itself.
Ask
Ask your own diary.
With a PlateDiary AI membership, Ask PlateDiary answers questions like “Where did I last have ramen?” from your own diary, with the bowl, the shop and the night as cards. It is optional, and it asks before anything leaves the phone.
Queues
Ramen trips and queues.
- Go at opening time. The queue is shortest and the broth is at its best.
- Learn the ticket machine. Many shops take your order at a machine by the door; the top-left button is usually the house bowl.
- One bowl per shop on a crawl. Share sides, skip the rice, save room.
- Note the queue. “Forty minutes, worth it” is a useful line next year.
- Try the house style first. Order the specials on the second visit.
Questions
Questions people ask.
How do you rate ramen?
Score broth, noodles, toppings and balance separately, then ask whether you’d queue for it again. Adding the parts keeps your ranking honest over time.
What are the main types of ramen?
The classic four are shoyu (soy), shio (salt), miso and tonkotsu (pork bone). Tsukemen, with noodles dipped in a separate broth, is another favourite.
Can I see every ramen shop I’ve been to?
Yes. Search Places for ramen and every shop you’ve had it at comes up, with a count of bowls at each.
Do I need PlateDiary AI to name my bowls?
No. Naming, stars and notes are free. PlateDiary AI can suggest names from the cut-out pictures if you want it to.
Keep reading
More from the diary
Guides
How to rate food
Stars, out of 10 or head-to-head? How to rate dishes and restaurants so your scores still mean something a year later, with a ready-made scale to copy.
Open →
Features
Collections and tags
Favorites in a tap, albums for date nights or a whole trip, and smart collections you make by typing a sentence like “ramen with Mia this year”. Tags too.
Open →Compare
Letterboxd for food
What a Letterboxd for food would need, the apps that come closest (social and private), and a diary card you can copy for every dish you’ve had.
Open →Features
Places
Open any place to see your usual, every dish you’ve had there, each visit and who you went with. Search a dish to find where you ate it. Free, on your phone.
Open →
Guides
Words to describe food
Words for taste, texture, aroma, temperature and look, sorted so you can find the right one fast, plus how to turn them into a one-line note about a dish.
Open →