My friend GingerMcInjure and I heard about this new ramen
place in St. Paul and thought we’d check it out. It’s not in a really
restaurant-y part of town, but the GPS took me right to it. The inside is small
with about ten tables to sit at. It’s one of those places that I hope gets some
better “wayfinding” signage inside so you know what to do when you walk in the
door for the first time – just a pet peeve of mine.
We stood around long enough that a couple of nice guys
behind the counter asked us if we needed help. They told us to think of it “like
a Subway for ramen”. I’m sure if their boss heard them describe it like that,
they’d go crazy, but I get it. You can either order one of the few ramen soups
or salads from the board, or you can build your own with all their super fresh
ingredients (way better than Subway, I assure you).
You can choose the type of noodles you want (traditional
ramen noodle or rice noodles) and they drop it in the boiling water to cook
them. Then, you pick what kind of greens you want (kale, arugula, or spinach).
Then, you’ve got a boatload of vegetables and garnishes you can add to your
bowl. I got a couple of fun things. You can add various oils and sauces to your
bowl and then you pick a protein, if you want. Finally, you can add broth to
you bowl, including shoyu pork broth, white miso-mushroom broth, or spicy miso.
I went with the spicy miso for mine and GingerMcInjure went with the shoyu pork
broth. And we BOTH got pork with our bowls.
They also have a few beers in cans, which is a nice touch,
if you’re into that sort of thing.
The meat itself had a great flavor, but honestly, the broths
are where this place shines. They really nail it. They’re not too salty, which
is sometimes a problem, and the flavor actually has some depth to it. I thought
it might not, since it’s sort of a fast-casual sort of place. All of the
vegetables were really fresh and the serving size is appropriate for this
setting and price point.
I really like this place a lot. More than I expected to. It
isn’t fancy ramen (for whatever that’s worth), which I also kind of liked, but
you don’t notice any lower quality than the fancy places. Great work! (Now, get
your staff to quit referencing Subway when they describe it – hahaha).
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