This welcoming Metairie gem in a strip mall on West Esplanade serves its ramen loaded up to the brim with fresh pickled vegetables and nicely-cooked meat. There’s a focus on tonkotsu, including a black garlic, creamy, and spicy version, as well as a solid vegetarian broth. It’s not the cheapest option on the map, but with fast and friendly service and an excellent “secret” Chinese menu, it’s worth checking out.

This is one of the Little Tokyo empire’s newest locations, going for a hip vibe with a focus on ramen, yakatori, and shabu shabu. It serves a variety of ramen soup: tonkotsu and spicy tonkotsu with a pork broth; shoyu, seasoned with soy sauce; and miso flavored. Also available and handy in the heat is the cold ramen option, which is more a cold salad using all the ramen ingredients and no broth.

This spot has recently revamped with new management and provides a solid selection of ramen. Like its sister restaurant Izakaya Little Tokyo in Metairie, miso, tonkatsu, shoyu, and cold ramen is on the menu, but there are some intriguing iterations available as well. Yaki ramen is more of a noodles and sauce variation, while the Italiano features a tomato based broth and mozzarella cheese. There’s a spicy corn ramen as well as several options for extra toppings.

The Drifter Hotel doesn’t have a kitchen, but it does have access to the Hong Kong Market on the Westbank. That’s where the bar staff goes and collects a variety of authentic, high-end instant soups with input from the Hong Kong Market staff. At the hotel, they add hot water and spruce it up with a couple of fresh ingredients like basil or jalapeno and sell it to the pool party clientele for 7 bucks.

This tiny, communal ramen joint on Magazine Street serves one ramen broth: the creamy, pork-based, traditional tonkotsu. Spice it up with the geki-kara version, or add a charred garlic oil for the kuro variation. There’s no vegetarian ramen here yet, but the kitchen is working on it. Besides the various permutations of tonkotsu ramen, the menu includes three other items: pork bun, edemame, and mochi for dessert.

This spot right off of Frenchmen Street offers a build-your-own ramen bowl from start to finish. Five meats, and one vegetable option to start, then choose a broth: tonkotsu/spicy tonkotsu, a chicken-based shoyu spinach, or the seaweed-soy yasmin konbu. Then there’s a choice from three noodly types: udon, ramen, or rice noodles. And of course, the optional toppings, like corn, kimchi, crab stick, nori, or BBQ pork.