Via Sakuramen.

By DCist contributor Josh Kramer

Don’t recognize that word on your dinner or drink menu? Sick of surreptitiously Googling at restaurants? Menu Decoder is your guide to obscure ingredients popping up on local dinner and cocktail menus.

What is it: Tonkotsu is a style of ramen broth. (It is easily confused with Tonkatsu, which is the name of a fried pork cutlet dish and the sweet sauce that goes with it.) It is a stock made from pork bones boiled for many hours to render the all the fat into a super rich, completely opaque broth. Tonkotsu can also include chicken, kombu seaweed, dried bonito flakes, and aromatics like leek, mushroom, scallion, garlic and ginger. It is from the Hakata district in Fukuoka, the largest city on Kyushu in southern Japan.

What does it taste like: The flavor — and the whole point of tonkotsu — is the alleged sixth taste: Umami. Think bacon, without the smokiness. The rich, silky pork fat taste is the real advantage of tonkotsu ramen. It is one of the best mediums for delivering flavor in Japanese cuisine. And that over-the-top intensity just might have something to do with tonkotsu ramen’s popularity in bacon-obsessed 21st Century America.

Where to try it: D.C.’s most famous ramen shop, Toki Underground (1234 H Street NE), makes tonkotsu ramen, but they are also strongly influenced by Taiwainese food. Sakuramen (2441 18th Street NW) has a tonkotsu with homemade red pepper miso. Both Daikaya (705 6th Street NW) and Ren’s Ramen (11403 Amherst Avenue, Wheaton-Glenmont, Md.) are known for their ramen, although they specialize in the lighter, clearer Sapporo style.

Kintaro Japanese Restaurant (1039 33rd Street NW) and Tanpopo Ramen House (4316 Markham Street, Annandale, Va.) also feature tonkotsu.