I grew up in Hawaii and have lived in Japan so it's exciting that we're finally getting lots of options. At the same time I'm inherently skeptical, especially of cheffy gaijin ramen shops. That being said I think I'm just a bit of an old-fashioned traditionalist because I went to Japan in May and was actually not that into some of the super hyped Ramen shops; it's like they were competing so much to be more extreme that they forgot to make balanced nuanced bowls. I preferred some random neighborhood places we stumbled across which were just fantastic and unfortunately way better than anything in Chicago.
Anyway, I haven't tried a lot of the latest wave yet but my personal top list is something like:
Santouka Ramen at Mitsuwa
for years the only option, this is still one of my absolute favorites. It's a humble, simple bowl but the broth is normally wonderful and the noodles are great. This reminds me of the Ramen I group up eating. I can never decide which tare is the best but the shio is pretty great. The umeboshi is a nice garnish. I don't think the special pork order is needed and that way you can have room for Onigiri from the grocery side (where is the Chicago Onigiri craze!).
Misoya Ramen
I've only been here twice because it's so far away but I loved it. Wonderful grileld chashu, fun toppings (the fried potato doesn't really work but I appreciate the corn) and great broth. My memory was that the noodles weren't quite as good as Santouka but it's been a long time.
Takeya Ramen
I only went to Wasabi the week they started serving Ramen and it was so awful I havne't gone back since (they ran out of ramen noodles and served the bowls with soba, and the broth was just completely wrong). I obviously need to give them another shot. On the other hand I've been to Takeya a couple of times and it's really good. The Tokyo shoyu broth may be a touch too sweet, and I wish the Paitan came with thicker noodles, but that's just quibbling. Both are great balanced bowls. Time to try the miso paitan next. For all the hype that tonkotsu broth gets I think Paitan can be just as good. And the tokyo alley way ambience is fun, although of course you could fit like 12 ramen stands inside Takeya.
Then a step down to Strings. Overall I was pleasantly surprised and have had good experiences at the Chinatown location for the most part (nice al dente noodles, good pork, too salty but still good broth). But I just had a terrible bowl at the new Lincoln Park location. It was on a weekend afternoon so I hope the real crew wasn't there or something, but the tepid overly sweet and salty broth with undercooked noodles and cold toppings were disappointing (I'm fine with a cold egg, that seems to be the norm in japan as well, but you need a super hot broth to heat it up).
I'll be sure to try Wasabi and Oiistar next.
Oh and while I'm at it, please indulge a little rant. Why do all Ramen shops in the US serve steamed bao sandwiches? Growing up I could swear you'd never see a steamed bun in a Ramen shop either in Hawaii or in Japan. Gyoza for sure, fried rice some times (served molded in a dome of course), yakisoba every once in a while. But never a steamed bun. I have to wonder if it's be because Momofuku decided to serve open faced sandwiches / steamed buns with their Ramen, and American restauranteurs all copied them and assumed that was the traditional appetizer to go with Ramen. Or at least that that is what people expect these days so better offer it. Or is this a more recent Japanese trend I'm not familiar with? I love steamed buns (although I prefer them cooked with the fillings inside than sandwiches) it just seems strange how omnipresent they are with ramen ...