Not even a fire could stop these 15 hungry punters from finishing their ramen

Life is all about simple pleasures, with food easily top of the list.

And by ‘food’ we do mean ramen, richly flavoured broth and wheat noodles, in particular here.

And no one knows this better than the 15 customers of a cult ramen joint in Tokyo’s neon-lit entertainment quarter who didn’t just brave the heat of the spicy broth but literal fire too.

A blaze broke out at the Shinjuku Kabukicho branch of Ramen Jiro on May 28, the Fuji News Network (FNN) reported.

Footage taken by a customer from outside the shop shows flames rising to the ceiling and thick smoke clogging the room.

But people sat on the counter and continued to slurp their noodles, which we guess is one way to get smoked ramen.

The diners continued to eat the meals or wait patiently for their bowls even as the fire began (Picture: YouTube/FNN)

The ramen chain has a cult status in Japan (Picture: YouTube/FNN)

‘Despite the fire and smoke, the restaurant was operating as usual,’ a witness said. ‘There were about 15 customers, and they were all seated.’

Only a chosen few actually got to eat their noodles in the end, however, with a customer telling FNN that he had travelled from Nagano Prefecture some 100 miles northwest of Tokyo just to have a bowl.

‘I was looking forward to it,’ the self-described Jirorian said. ‘I was so close.’

Staff initially didn’t raise the alarm about the fire, according to witnesses, and evacuated them when the flames grew in size.

The shop was shortly after evacuated and the fire was extinguished (Picture: YouTube/FNN)

‘The fire started and the staff started to panic. It was scary,’ a diner said.

‘We were just going to eat some ramen, and we never expected to be caught in the fire.’

No one was injured in the fire, according to the city police.

Fire officials say the cause of the fire is unclear but are investigating.

Ramen Jiro is all too well known among Japanese salarymen and students for its tough-as-nails noodles, chunks of pork and mountain of chopped garlic, so much so that the people who queue for a serving are called ‘Jiroians’.

And these serving are big. Seriously, a ‘small’ bowl of ramen contains about 300g of noodles alone, a good 100g more than an average portion.

Around one in five men in their 20s to 40s in the Tokyo metropolitan area are Jirorians, according to Shinshu University researchers.

Even as flames could be seen tearing up the insides of the Ramen Jiro, sending thick smoke into the streets, loyal customers began to queue up outside the shop.

Sharing footage of firefighters racing to extinguish the blaze, local host club worker Miki Amemiya, 26, wrote on X: ‘Our Jiro aaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!’

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