A Ramen Master Sets Up Shop in Chandler

Hirohata Norihiro serves roughly 40 bowls a day at his tiny counter in Japan. The tonkotsu is the same at Iro Shoten in Chandler.

By Rebecca Thompson
4:15 a.m. MT, Oct. 9, 2026

Tonkotsu

AUTHOR BIO: Rebecca Thompson has held many jobs, from newspaper writer to middle-school teacher. As a restaurant critic, she’s reviewed the Michelin-starred to gas station BBQ.

Chandler has a new ramen shop, and it arrives by way of a tiny counter in Fukuoka. Iro Shoten opened in September inside the Ranch Market plaza. The chef is Hirohata Norihiro, and the specialty is Hakata-style tonkotsu, the rich pork broth he is known for back home at Mendo Hanamokoshi.

Mendo Hanamokoshi sits in Fukuoka's Yakuin neighborhood, and it is small by design. Hirohata reportedly makes the noodles, tends the broth and slices the chashu himself, serving roughly 40 bowls a day. For several years running, the shop has landed on the Top 100 ramen list from Tabelog, Japan's dominant restaurant guide — the one chefs there actually watch. In a country that takes its ramen seriously, that is no small thing.

Waretamago bowl

He hasn't adjusted the recipe for Arizona. The menu lists five bowls, and each one starts with the same tonkotsu broth, finished with green onions and a house red chili spice. The noodles are cut fresh in the kitchen from flour brought in from Fukuoka, and the seasonings and green onions come from Japan too.

The Classic keeps it plain. The Premium adds pork chashu and a soft-boiled ajitama egg. The Super Chashumen piles on extra pork belly and nori. And there is a bowl finished with A5 wagyu, for anyone who finds the rest too restrained.

Ramen is only half the menu. There are five sushi rolls and five crudos, cut when you order them. The Hanamokoshi Roll, named for the Fukuoka shop, pairs hamachi with kumquat, serrano and white ponzu. The Yama Roll layers salmon with red tobiko, lemon and eel sauce.

Hanamokoshi roll

The crudos run from yellowtail, tuna and salmon to scallop and A5 wagyu. And small plates — karaage, shrimp tempura, chashu fried rice — cover a table that can't settle on one direction.

Super chashumen

Chef Hirohata Norihiro

It would have been easy to license the name and check in a few times a year. Instead, Iro Shoten is Hirohata's own project — one specific bowl of ramen, made the way he makes it in Fukuoka, served in a shopping plaza in the East Valley. The Phoenix area has plenty of ramen these days. It hasn't had one quite like this. If the lines at his Fukuoka counter are any indication, the wait may become part of the experience.